Reborn Heart of Steel

The music room door burst open with a clang, jolting me violently out of my stunned reverie.

Mr. Henderson, our barrel-chested music teacher, came waddling in with his trademark scowl firmly in place.

“Abrams! What are you still doing here?” he barked, his brusque tones shattering the weighted silence like a sledgehammer. “I’ve got a class coming in two minutes, so get a move on.”

I blinked dazedly, struggling to snap back to reality as the rest of the motley crew of music students traipsed in behind Henderson including, of course, Brittany and her cackling harpies.

Suddenly remembering I wasn’t alone, I whipped my head around toward Derek Thorne… only to find the imposing giant had vanished as inexplicably as he arrived. So it hadn’t been some wild hallucination, then.

“Miss Abrams was just providing me with a… private audition, if you will,” a disembodied baritone quietly rumbled from the shadowy wings of the room.

Mr. Henderson jumped nearly a foot in the air as Derek Thorne reemerged from the depths, his formidable presence now somehow contained in the confines of the small stage.

Even Brittany and her posse of harpies fell into an uncharacteristic, stunned silence a reaction that would have been richly satisfying in any other circumstance.

“M-Mr. Thorne!” Henderson sputtered, looking flustered as he hastily smoothed back his comb-over. “I didn’t realize you… that is to say, what an honor to”

“Yes, yes, the pleasantries,” Thorne waved off the flustered teacher with a brusque flick of his wrist. “We were simply having a brief discussion about… future opportunities, shall we say.”

His smoldering gaze found mine again, holding it with that same magnetic intensity that rendered me utterly immobile in its grip.

I could only stare back, dumbfounded, as the rest of the class collectively held their breath around us.

“Now then,” Henderson cut in, seeming to regain his blustery composure as he clapped his meaty hands together. “If you’ll all take your seats, I have an exciting announcement to make about the upcoming showcase at the end of the semester!”

A murmur of interest rippled through the group as the other students hastened to find open chairs, chattering amongst themselves.

Brittany, however, remained standing with her harpies clustered behind her, fixing Thorne with a haughty glare.

“Oh we’re just supposed to sit here while the famous Chairman auditions his opening acts?” she called out in that shrill nasal whine that made me want to grind my teeth. “Some of us might actually have talent beyond Loser Lucy over here.”

Henderson shot her a scathing look, but there was an unmistakable flicker of deference in his eyes nonetheless.

From the heavy silence that blanketed the others, it was obvious no one was keen to stand up to Brittany’s bald provocation.

Well, almost no one.

“While I have no doubt the arts curriculum at Westbrook is enriching for all pupils,” Derek Thorne’s molten baritone cut through the tension like a broadsword, his eyes glittering dangerously as they raked over Brittany’s scowling features, “I fear the… uncultured temperaments of certain students may be tragically ill-suited for truly appreciating the finer aspects of the craft.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the ringing silence that followed.

Brittany’s eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of their sockets, her pouty mouth working uselessly as a splotchy flush crept up her neck.

“After all,” Thorne continued, his voice rich with undisguised derision, “genuine artistic expression demands a visceral emotional rawness that would no doubt be… quite beyond the limitations of the cosmetically enhanced.”

There were a few muffled snorts and titters at that final barb, which seemed to be the combustible spark that reignited Brittany’s sputtering rage.

Rounding on me with undisguised venom, she stabbed one crimson talon in my direction.

“You think you’re so special, Loser Lucy?” she hissed, her eyes blazing with affronted fury. “You’re not even worth the gum on the bottom of my shoe! What could this old pervert possibly see in a used up, trailer trash skank like you?”

“That’s quite enough from you, young lady!” Henderson bellowed, his face mottled with rage as he jabbed a stubby finger towards the door. “Office, now! And I’ll be speaking to your parents about your vile disrespect as well!”

Brittany didn’t even seem to register the teacher’s words.

Her entire being was focused on me with such scathing, unbridled loathing that I instinctively shrank back on my piano bench.

I could practically feel the ragged fingernails of her jealousy clawing at my skin, vicious and feral.

“You better watch yourself, trailer trash,” she spat through gritted teeth, punctuating each vile word with naked savagery. “You’re not going to just waltz in here like some rags-to-riches Cinderella fantasy and take what’s mine. We clear? This school, this showcase, all of it belongs to me!”

With that parting snarl, she whirled on her heel and stormed out, her faithful sycophants scrambling in her wake.

The rest of the class stared after her in wide-eyed shock, the stark silence seeming to reverberate against the walls.

“Well then,” Henderson huffed, valiantly attempting to rally the room with a tight smile. “Let’s make a start on those showcase details, shall we?”

But as the lecture droned on in the background, I couldn’t focus on a single word.

My mind kept replaying Brittany’s vicious outburst over and over, her jealous, territorial rage branding itself into my psyche like a white-hot brand.

Long after the final bell mercifully sounded, those hate-filled eyes still bore into me, bitter and caustic and utterly inescapable.

The creak of the front door seemed to reverberate through the desolate house as I slipped inside.

My shoulders sagged as the familiar dank, stale reek of mildew and cheap whiskey washed over me just another pungent olfactory harbinger of the grim despondency awaiting within.

“That you, girl?” My mother’s smoke-ravaged bark shattered the oppressive silence like a gunshot. I flinched as her hulking silhouette emerged from the living room gloom, already bracing for impact.

“Don’t just stand there gawkin’ at me like a brain-dead cow,” Janine sneered, planting her hands on her broad hips as she loomed over me. “Get in here and fix me another drink. Lord knows I need it after the day I had.”

With a resigned sigh, I trudged into the dimly-lit living room and made for the teetering card table serving as our dining surface.

Empty beer cans and liquor bottles congregated in small shanty towns littered across its scarred surface the only hint that this place had been occupied while I was away.

“Some son of a bitch let the new Westinghouse inventory go tits up at the line today,” Janine grumbled, sinking back down onto her ratty recliner with a resigned grunt. “Had to stay behind putting out fires ’til past seven just to unfuck the mess.”

I bit back the automatic impulse to question why she was home so early then as I mixed her another glass of cheap-ass rail whiskey.

Asking for any semblance of consistency or reason from the loose collection of chaos ruling my mother’s sad life would only invite fresh anguish.

“I met… someone today,” I ventured softly as I placed the drink on the battered milk crate beside her chair. “A man who… who said he saw something in me.”

Janine snorted derisively at that as she knocked back half her drink in one gulp, sloshing a bit down her front in the process.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“That right?” she slurred with a sneer, wiping her mouth sloppily with the back of her hand. “What’d he see, the way your tits finally stopped sagging after growin’ a pair of teenage mosquito bites?”

My cheeks flamed, but I refused to take the crude bait. I pressed on, channeling every ounce of desperate courage I could muster.

“Mr. Thorne… he heard me singing. In the music room after school. And he seemed to think I had… talent.”

She tensed once she heard the name.

The words tumbled out in a breathless rush before I could think better of it.

A weighted pause hung in the stale air as my mother regarded me through narrowed, beady eyes – the only sounds were the muted strains of a talk show playing on the cracked TV and her fingers drumming against the glass tumbler.

“Talent, huh?” She finally broke the tense silence with a harsh bark of laughter, taking another swig of whiskey. “That what this fancy man told you? That Lucy Abrams has got some big talent he wants a piece of?”

She shook her head slowly, her stringy blonde curls swaying languidly as that cruel smirk stretched wider.

“Well aren’t you just a regular old diamond in the rough?” she sneered, leaning forward to fix me with those hollow, dead eyes. “A true rags-to-riches Cinderella story in the making!”

“This wasn’t like that, Mom!” I insisted, feeling my cheeks flush deeper under the caustic mockery saturating her tone. “He wasn’t… hitting on me or anything. He just appreciated my singing, that’s all!”

“Oh is that all?” She took another cavalier swig, swallowing it down with an exaggerated grimace before licking her lips with unconcealed relish. “Well in that case, by all means! After all, when some rich prick decides he wants to make use of you, you just jump at the chance, right?”

My mouth snapped shut with an audible click as shame and anger swirled in my gut.

Of course this was how she’d react – deflecting my even the faintest glimmers of hope with her own bitter cynicism.

“I’m sure this perv had nothing but the noblest intentions in scoping out the public school’s music program,” Janine barreled on with that mocking sarcasm practically dripping from her tongue. “Lucky thing he was there to appreciate your… assets before they got too run down.”

“That’s not fair!” I finally snapped, balling my fists at my side as that wounded, embarrassed rage finally boiled over. “For once I’m thinking maybe there’s a chance at something good happening for me, and you just-”

The backhanded slap caught me completely off-guard, whipping my head to the side with a sharp crack.

I stumbled back a step, clutching the fresh sting blossoming across my cheek as my mother loomed over me with wild, drunken fury blazing in her eyes.

“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me, you ungrateful little c***!” She snarled, sloshing whiskey over the sides of her glass as she jabbed a finger in my face. “After everything I sacrificed putting food on the table and keeping a roof over that worthless head of yours!”

I stared back at her, trembling, as the familiar sense of broken despondency once again washed over me in thick, suffocating waves.

This was the same, inescapable cycle we’d been locked in since before Dad walked out all those years ago – any tiny flicker of ambition or hope on my end inevitably crushed beneath the bitter weight of my mother’s boundless resentments and regrets.

“So some gross old man heard you singing and suddenly you think you’re a star?” Janine hissed, her lips curling back in a sneer. “That’s the last goddamn mistake you’ll be making.”

She lurched forward suddenly, using her considerable bulk to easily back me up against the wall.

I shrank back as far as I could, but there was no escaping the hot whiskey fumes on her breath as she leaned in with wild, bloodshot eyes.

“I’ll tell you what really would’ve happened if I allowed you to go running off chasing pipe dreams with that pervert, Little Miss Talent.” Her voice was little more than a guttural rasp, laced with bitter venom. “He would’ve used you up and tossed you right back into the goddamn gutter the second he got bored or your looks faded. Just like your old man did to me when I was dumb enough to buy into his pretty little promises.”

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as the jagged shrapnel of her words sliced into me, raw and caustic.

Any lingering defiance bled out in the wake of her harsh, unrelenting tirade.

“This life is all you and I get, Lucy,” Janine breathed, her cruel smirk an ugly rictus gash. “So you’d better get real goddamn comfortable being another neglected has-been like me. ‘Cause I’ll be damned if I let you keep dreaming those sweet little white picket fantasies, just to end up discarded on the junkpile too.”

With that, she shoved off from me with a grunt, knocking back the last of her drink before collapsing onto the recliner in a sprawl.

My entire body sagged against the wall, a husk of shattered hopes and wounded defiance as the hate-soaked diatribe continued ringing in my ears.

Janine’s rasping snores soon filled the squalid air, mingling with the obscene laugh track blaring from the TV.

But as I willed the free-flowing tears to abate, clutching my throbbing cheek, I could still feel the ice-cold weight of her embittered wrath burrowing beneath my skin.

No matter how I longed to finally escape this suffocating purgatory of poverty and abuse, the shackles anchoring me here always seemed to grow tighter and more inescapable with each fleeting glimpse of freedom on the horizon.

And so the cycle continued, unyielding and unbroken – my dreams and spirit slowly corroded until they were as cold and discarded as every other lost promise littering the ruins of my wretched existence.