Chapter 8
When I came to. I heard Nick saying. “Vanessa’s hearing was almost gone for good! Trevor, you almost took away her last hope too!”
Trevor fell back onto the sofa and laughed like he was going crazy. “So she can hear. Oh, for my concert tonight, she has to sit in the best seat!”
As he spoke, he bent over, burying his head in his knees, his voice. shaking. “Why didn’t she tell me? She wanted so badly to hear my voice. Why didn’t she tell me such a happy thing first?”
Nick sneered sarcastically. “Did you forget you’re planning to propose to some other girl at tonight’s concert?
“How cool of you, willing to upset all your fans for a manipulative girl and even spend a fortune to give everyone at the concert a diamond ring, just to make them ‘willingly‘ bless you two!”
“Enough, shut up!” Trevor cut him off, his eyes red, breathing heavily.
His phone lit up, and he picked it up.
Nick raised his voice, continuing, “I don’t get it. How is that bitch better than Vanessa in any way?”
“I said, shut up!”
Trevor tugged at the silver chain around his neck, his voice getting colder bit by bit.
“I just told Caroline I’d pick her up and take her to the concert.”
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He stood up and took out the earring from his right ear. “Give this to
Vanessa.
“Tell her not to throw it away again.”
Nick asked, “Aren’t you going to wait a bit longer? She’d want to see you when she comes to.”
Trevor didn’t say anything and left in a rush.
***
When Nick came back from seeing Trevor off, I had got up and picked up the seashell from the table.
Someone had glued it back together.
Nick tried to comfort me, “Don’t cry. That jerk isn’t worth it!”
I thought, “Yeah, he’s not worth it. I don’t care.”
I raised my hand to cover my watery eyes and held the seashell to my ear.
The summer sea breeze whispered past my ear, like a soft, tender call.
My mom said, “Baby, run. Run far away and leave the people who break your heart.”
The concert got going without a hitch.
Trevor looked down and saw Caroline sitting in the front row, dressed up in a pure white dress.
He suddenly thought back to the high school music room.
Caroline sang her own song and said with a playful grin, “If you can play
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Chapter 8
it right away, we’ll be together.”
Her talent had blown Trevor away and stuck with him like an obsession.
But for some reason, he found himself looking at the seat in the eleventh. row, way off to the side.
That was where Vanessa always sat, totally blending into the background.
Trevor remembered his first paid gig at a small bar that was about to close for good.
Some drunk guy started trouble, and Vanessa, usually so quiet, smashed a bottle and glared at him so fiercely that he backed off.
Trevor also thought back to his first concert.
Vanessa was small, lugging around boxes of fan supplies. Exhausted, she sat in the shadows and listened to him sing.
She couldn’t hear a thing, but she was beaming.
After that, Trevor wrote the hit song, How I Wish You Could Hear.
Now, in the deafening cheers, he missed Vanessa’s applause.
During the break, he couldn’t wait to call Nick.
“Has Vanessa come to? Tell her to wait for me tonight.
“I’ll sing her favorite songs all night long.”
The dressing room door was flung open.
“Trevor, let’s get the party started early!”
Caroline walked in with a bottle of red wine, her face all smiles.
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Trevor hung up the phone and, for the first time, looked at her in a different way.
“You know, drinking can mess up your vocal cords.”
Caroline’s smile froze.
Trevor stared straight at her. “I listened to the song Vanessa ‘copied‘ from you. The style is really like hers.”
Caroline’s eyes turned red. “You doubt me?”
After a moment of silence, Trevor’s heart softened. He pulled Caroline into his arms and started humming a song.
“What’s this song? I’ve never heard you sing it before.”
Trevor was stunned.
It was the song Vanessa had sung in the music classroom.
In a flash, Trevor realized something.
Panicking terribly, he made a video call to Nick, forcing him to turn on the camera.
“Nick, I told you, if she leaves, you’re out too!”
Seeing the empty bed, Trevor collapsed onto the sofa, his lips trembling.
Caroline moved closer and wrapped her arm around his. “Let her go. She was trying to sabotage the concert!”
Trevor pushed her away and ran out in a daze.
No way, Vanessa couldn’t leave. Not now, not when he had just
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discovered the truth.
She hadn’t heard his concert yet.
And she hadn’t heard him say “I love you.”
