(TW: Medical trauma, sudden hearing loss)
The last thing I heard was my own scream.
It ripped through me like piano wire—sharp, metallic, alive—as the world folded into silence. One moment, I was on stage, fingers dancing across ivory keys in the final crescendo of Chopin's Nocturne. The next, a high-pitched shriek drilled through my skull, and then...
Nothing.
Not the gasps of the audience.
Not my hands slamming against the keys in panic.
Not even my own voice when I cried for help.
The doctors called it sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
"Like a light switch flipping off," one said, snapping his fingers—a gesture I felt, not heard.
"Sometimes... it just happens," another murmured, avoiding my eyes.
But I saw the truth in the way my mother's shoulders shook with silent sobs.
In the way my father's lips moved too carefully when he said, "We'll adapt."
Adapt.
As if I could relearn how to breathe.
As if my hands wouldn't always reach for melodies I could no longer hear.
That night, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of my bedroom window and watched the world move on:
Cars honking (silent).
My neighbor's wind chimes (silent).
The laugh of the boy who used to toss pebbles at my window to ask for jam sessions (gone).
I dug my nails into my palms until they left crescent moons.
This wasn't a pause.
This was an ending.
Or so I thought—until him.
Until the boy with storm-gray eyes and scars like sheet music across his wrists showed up with a guitar and a smirk, and whispered words that vibrated through my bones:
"You don't need ears to feel music, Aria.
You just need someone who knows how to make you shake."
YOU ARE READING
? BROKEN NOTES: CAN YOU HEAR MY HEARTBEAT? ?
Teen Fiction"Music was my life-until I lost the one thing that made it beautiful." Aria Carter was a piano prodigy, destined for greatness-until a sudden illness stole her hearing. Now, the melodies that once defined her are silent, and she's convinced her drea...
