Reborn Heart of Steel

The final bell trilled, signaling sweet freedom from the scholastic grind.

The hallways quickly emptied as students made a beeline for the exits.

I lingered behind, wandering the mostly deserted corridors until I reached the music room’s heavy double doors.

This place was my sanctuary – the one spot at Westbrooke where I could just exist without getting ripped apart for once.

The old piano waited patiently in the corner, its chipped keys a stark contrast to the sleek electric ones lining the wall.

I traced the cool steel reverently as I passed, my fingers tingling with familiar buzzes.

God, they were just calling out to me – these beautiful instruments humming with the promise of sweet melodies and an escape from never-ending cruelty.

Soft afternoon light filtered through the high windows, casting everything in this warm, dreamy kind of glow.

A faint smile tugged at my lips as I settled onto the lumpy piano bench, lifting the fallen board with a contented sigh.

That familiar smell of old wood and worn keflets enveloped me like a hug from an old friend.

My fingers caressed the ivories almost reverently at first before finding their old grooves.

The tentative first few notes rang out, then quickly gained confidence and purpose as they flowed into a melody of my own creation.

The raw, dissonant harmonies wove together from somewhere deep down, pouring out in this aching cry that just felt so visceral yet somehow uplifting in its honesty.

This was my truth, my secret voice finally able to breathe and scream out unabashedly without fear of judgment or blow back.

As my fingers danced across the keys, I tilted my head back and just surrendered to the song.

” Shadows veil the morning light,

Choking fragile dreams before they take flight.

Smothered by the callous night,

Still, I ache to live in your warmth’s first light.

The cold, it seeps beneath my skin,

A million icy tendrils digging deep within.

Leeching out my battered will,Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

Freezing up the little hope I struggle to feel.

Then I sense your rays divine

Peeking past the brutal night’s dark line.

In your brilliance, I’ll recline

And purge that cruel chill your dawn declines.

Blissful thaw to shatter the chains,

Quelling bitter shadows, ending their evil reigns.

Mending all the wounds and pains

With your salve of loving rays that ever remains. ”

I let the final notes bleed out into silence, my eyes still squeezed shut as the raw anguish of the song hung thick in the air.

Every word, every melancholy chord had come entirely unbidden – like a raw, spiritual hemorrhaging of all the pain and torment and suffering my messed-up life had endured so far.

Yet in purging all that darkness, I was left with something else… some profound sense of lightness.

Of hope, and faith that those brilliant rays of warmth would eventually break through the dense black fog swallowing my soul.

I gradually blinked my eyes open, letting out a shaky sigh as the windows came swimming back into focus –

I jumped the moment my eyes landed on a hulking figure under the light.

” I didn’t mean to scare you. Forgive me for intruding. ”

His voice rumbled, the rich baritone echoing through the room as he advanced towards me with lazy but calculative grace.

My breath caught in my throat as he emerged into the amber light – he had to be pushed seven feet tall, with shoulders spanning wider than the damn piano.

Yet the way he moved… there was this fluid, innate elegance that just seemed at odds with that barbaric size. His severe features were chiseled from granite beneath a thick crown of gunmetal gray hair.

But it was those eyes, burning with a smoldering intensity that bored straight through me, that rendered me utterly frozen on that piano bench.

“That was… extraordinary,” the giant rumbled, his words soft yet commanding. “You possess a rare talent, young lady.”

My mouth just opened and closed uselessly as he prowled in closer.

Every muscle in my body was screaming at me to flee, to get the hell away from this dominant alpha presence.

But I remained locked in place, transfixed beneath that piercing stare.

“Derek Thorne,” he introduced himself, extending one bear-paw of a hand. ” Please, forgive my intrusion. I was drawn in by the sound of your… exquisite performance, and couldn’t resist witnessing it for myself. ”

My eyes flickered between that outstretched hand and his blazing regard, completely and utterly poleaxe.

Derek Thorne… the name pinged something in the back of my mind, laden with importance yet ultimately meaningless at that moment.

To my surprise, the giant withdrew his hand with a disarming rumble of laughter, taking a respectful step back.

“Not every day a student receives a private audience with the President of the District’s Board of Education, I’d wager,” he remarked, those harsh features relaxing into an almost loving warmth. ” But no need for alarm, my dear. I assure you I’m quite harmless, even to those not… accustomed to my imposing presence. ”

The subtle emphasis on those last few words finally snapped me out of my stupor.

I straightened up on the bench, willing my thundering heart to quit pounding in my damn ears.

” So… did you like the show, Mr. Thorne? ” I blurted out, then immediately cringed at my own sarcastic tone. What the hell was wrong with me?

But to my surprise, Derek Thorne let out a deep peal of laughter that rumbled through the whole room.

“Ah, the unvarnished audacity of youth,” he chuckled with an appraising gleam. “Yes, Miss…?”

“Lucy,” I said, pausing briefly before adding: “Lucy Abrams.”

“Miss Abrams,” Thorne repeated with a regal little nod. “Yes, I must confess your personal performance was on an entirely higher plane from what I had initially anticipated… or than, indeed, anything I’ve quite experienced before.”

My brow furrowed slightly at the weird, circuitous statement.

Something about the timbre of Thorne’s voice, some deep, resonant quality beyond the rich baritone reverberation, just seemed to command your full attention.

“You see, I came here in search of a unique talent,” he continued, studying me with that penetrating thousand-yard stare. “A particular voice capable of conveying profound emotion and baring the raw human soul through its melodies.”

A hot, squirmy feeling started twisting in the pit of my stomach as his words seemed to burn straight through to my core.

He couldn’t possibly be implying what I thought he was, could he?

“My dearest grandmother Constance, you see, was the world’s preeminent opera diva in her prime.” A wistful smile ghosted across the giant’s harsh features as he uttered the name. “Her voice… a transcendent gift capable of bringing audiences across the globe to a standstill.”

He drifted in closer again, and I felt my every muscle instinctively seize up as his overwhelming presence seemed to expand around me like a tightening vice.

“But time is cruelly indiscriminate in the gifts it revokes,” Thorne murmured, regarding me with somber reverence. ” Years ago, my grandmother’s voice was savagely robbed from her by a degenerative condition. Yet her passion for her art endures diminished in that immortal spirit. ”

Thorne’s eyes slid shut then, as he savored the silence like it was the sweetest ambrosia.

When his lids lifted again, they shone bright with profound rapture.

” Your song, Miss Abrams… it resonated with the same searing emotional authenticity of my grandmother’s most transcendent arias. In that achingly raw lament, I sensed the kindred spirit and passion that so defined the legacy of Constance Thorne. ”

Was this really happening right now?

Was this towering, distinguished giant, this bastion of quiet power and authority, really suggesting what I thought he was?

“It would be the greatest honor…” Thorne murmured, his impossibly gentle timbre seeming to caress my very essence. “If you might allow me the privilege of sharing your extraordinary gift with my grandmother.”

I could only gape up at him, completely and utterly transfixed and unable to speak a single damn word.

Somewhere in the background, the late bell for detention rang shrilly, but I barely registered the sound beyond the thunderous pounding of my own pulse in my ears.

“Think about it, Miss Abrams.”