1

The day I found out my mother was having an affair with my piano teacher, my father was eerily calm. All he said was that he wanted to hear me play one last piece.

But as the final note faded into silence, he leaped from the roof of our three-story home.

I watched him fall. I saw his body shatter against the flagstones, his blood staining the white roses in the garden a sickening crimson.

From that moment on, the piano became my deepest, darkest nightmare.

That’s why, on my wedding day, I told my wife, Aurora, "If you ever want to divorce me, just play a song on the piano."

Back then, she was just an unknown cover artist. She wrapped her arms around me, her embrace tight and fierce. "Don't worry," she whispered. "There will never be a piano in our house."

Five years later, Aurora was a sensation—a chart-topping singer-songwriter. When a top-tier luxury brand offered her a massive endorsement deal that required her to play piano in their commercial, she refused without a moment's hesitation.

Watching the press conference, seeing the unwavering resolve in her eyes, I thought to myself, this is what true love looks like.

A year after that, I came home early, clutching the sheet music for a new song I’d just finished for her. But as I walked up the driveway, I heard it. A melody, flowing from the open windows of our mansion.

The sound of a piano.

I found Aurora seated at a grand piano I had never seen before. A young man in a crisp white suit stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her as their fingers danced and intertwined across the black and white keys.

When she saw me, Aurora’s expression didn't change. She just gestured casually. "Ethan, this is Leo. He’s your half-brother. He came to connect with family."

I stared at her, and a slow, cold smile spread across my face.

"My father only had one son."

In that instant, I knew.

Our marriage was over.

2

I sat before my father’s grave for three hours, the silence broken only by the wind whispering through the cypress trees. The sky was a heavy, oppressive grey, a cruel echo of the day he left me.

In my head, a phantom concerto played on a loop.

The piano. It used to be my world.

Ten years ago today, my mother ran off with my piano teacher. And my father, my quiet, gentle father, ended his life to the soundtrack of my playing. After that, the piano became a ghost that haunted my every waking moment. A nightmare I could never escape.

I’ve always believed I was the one who killed him. If I had never learned to play, if I hadn't touched the keys that day... maybe he would still be here.

And now, ten years later, my own wife had invited the son of that monster into my home, sat him down at a piano, and let him tear open my oldest, deepest wound.

The most bitter irony? The piece they were playing was a melody I recognized—a variation of the breakout hit I wrote for Aurora, the song that launched her into stardom. The ladder I had painstakingly built for her, plank by painful plank, had just become the blade she plunged into my back.

Finally, I stood up to leave, my joints stiff and cold. As I walked away from my father’s final resting place, my phone rang. It was Aurora.

"It's late. Why aren't you home?" she asked, her tone flat.

I said nothing.

The old me, the Ethan of yesterday, would have been bursting with excitement. I would have told her the new song was my best work yet, that it would solidify her legacy, take her to heights she’d only dreamed of.

But now, the words felt like ash in my mouth.

Silence stretched between us. When I didn't answer, her voice sharpened, climbing a few degrees. "Did you hear me? I'm talking to you."

"I'm at the cemetery," I said, my voice hollow.

A pause on her end. Then, with a sigh of impatience, she said, "You're not seriously upset about me playing the piano with Leo, are you? It's been ten years, Ethan. Don't you think it's time to let it go?"

I wanted to scream, to rage, but a vicious cramp suddenly twisted my gut, so intense that the phone slipped from my grasp and clattered onto the pavement.

Aurora must have heard the thud, because her tone shifted instantly. "Is it your stomach? Are you having an attack?" she asked, a flicker of concern in her voice. "Stay right where you are. I'm coming to take you to the hospital."

All those years, locked away in my studio, pouring my soul into her music… I’d forgotten to eat, to sleep, to take care of myself. The relentless pace had shredded my health, leaving me with a severe stomach condition.

My hands trembling, I fumbled in my bag for my medication. I dry-swallowed the pills, and after a few moments, the razor-sharp pain began to dull. I pushed myself to my feet and started walking again.

Just then, a sleek black car—Aurora's car—screamed past me. It didn’t even slow down. A moment later, my phone buzzed with a text.

[Leo twisted his ankle. It looks bad. Rushing him to the ER.]

[Take your meds. I'll come back for you as soon as I can.]

I stared at the screen, my face a blank mask. I wasn't surprised. Of course. Leo would never miss a chance to monopolize her attention. And Aurora… she knew his little games. She understood his manipulations perfectly.

But she enjoyed them. She thrived on being needed, on being the center of his world.

Because she didn't give a damn about mine.

Fine. It didn't matter anymore. Because from this moment on, I didn't give a damn about hers either.

I scrolled through my contacts until I found my lawyer's number.

"I'm getting a divorce," I said, my voice steady and cold. "And I want you to immediately terminate all free-use licenses of my songs for Aurora Vance. Effective immediately."

She was the star of the label, the queen of the charts. I was the chief songwriter, the ghost in the machine. She glittered in the spotlight; I toiled in the shadows. For ten years, I had taken a nobody from a dimly lit club and molded her into a superstar.

But somewhere along the way, the love we shared had faded into nothing.

3

Aurora didn't come home that night.

She didn't call, either.

Naturally, I didn't ask.

The next morning, I heard a key turn in the lock. She walked in, looking exhausted, dark circles smudged under her eyes.

"Leo’s ankle was sprained pretty badly. He couldn't manage on his own, so I stayed with him at the hospital," she explained, her voice weary. "It got too late, so I just crashed on a cot in his room."

"Oh," I said, my eyes not leaving the divorce agreement my lawyer had emailed over.

It didn't matter. Soon, we wouldn't be husband and wife. She could have all the freedom she wanted. Her life would no longer have anything to do with me.

My indifference seemed to throw her off. She paused, a flicker of surprise on her face, as if she wanted to say something more. After a moment's hesitation, she pulled a single ticket from her pocket.

"You always said you wanted to see one of my concerts live," she said, holding it out. "It's the day after tomorrow. Eight p.m."

In the ten years we'd been together, I had written hundreds of her hits. She performed hundreds of shows a year. But not once had she ever invited me.

She used to apologize, her eyes filled with a carefully practiced regret. "Ethan, I'm so sorry. I just can't. My career is at such a critical point. Half my fanbase thinks of me as their girlfriend. If news got out that I was married… it would destroy everything."

And I understood. I accepted the life of a shadow. I learned to date in a mask and a baseball cap. I learned to walk in the opposite direction when the movie credits rolled, leaving her to face the world alone so I could slip away unnoticed.

But then Leo came along. And suddenly, there he was, sitting in the front-row VIP section, basking in the spotlight. I watched from a pirated stream as Aurora sang the songs I wrote, her smile directed only at him. I saw her take his hand and pull him onto the stage.

The camera flashes I had hidden from for a decade exploded, capturing them together. Aurora Vance, the star who famously had zero scandals, was finally in the gossip columns. Not with her husband, but with Leo.

That's when I finally understood. The rules were never for the one she loved. They were only for me. The one she didn't.

My gaze flickered over the ticket. It was for her one-thousandth concert, a landmark event. All her oldest fans would be there. It was meant to be the most important night of her career.

When I made no move to take it, she froze. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"Let's have dinner tonight," she said finally, her voice softer. "After all, it's our tenth anniversary."

I nodded. No reason to refuse.

It seemed fitting. A perfect day to put a final, decisive end to a decade of my life.

4

I arrived at the restaurant on time, the freshly printed divorce papers tucked safely in my briefcase.

When I pushed open the door to our private room, I saw him. Leo. Sitting right next to Aurora.

I turned to leave, but she grabbed my wrist. "Don't go," she pleaded. "Leo is a good person. He genuinely wants to make things right with you. He just wants you to let go of the past."

A tremor ran through me. My nails dug into my palms, the pain a welcome distraction.

Let it go?

She wanted me to forgive them? The father and son duo who had destroyed my world? Forgive the man who drove my own father to his death?

Never. Not in this life.

If he truly meant no harm, then why did he help shatter a marriage? Why did he back my father into a corner with no way out? And why, why did he and my mother move so quickly to build their new life while my father's body was barely cold in the ground?

Suppressing a wave of violent rage, I pulled the divorce agreement from my briefcase and threw it in her face. The papers fluttered down onto the table between us.

"Sign it," I bit out.

The words "DIVORCE AGREEMENT" stared up at her. Her face paled, then hardened. "Ethan, what is the meaning of this?"

What could it possibly mean? It means we're done.

Beside her, Leo shot her a nervous glance, his voice trembling pitifully. "Sister Aurora… it seems brother still won't forgive me. Maybe… maybe I should just leave. I don't want to be the cause of any trouble between you two." He sniffled, his eyes growing red-rimmed. "I know. In his heart, I'll always be a sinner. He won't even give me a chance to atone."

That was all it took. Aurora immediately sprang to his defense.

"The sins of the past have nothing to do with him! He's just a kid, Ethan. Why do you have to cling to it so obsessively?"

He's just a kid?

And what was I? When my father died right before my eyes, wasn't I just a kid, too?

"Think whatever you want," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Just sign the papers."

Seeing my resolve, her expression turned to ice. She glared at me, then snatched a pen and scrawled her name across the signature line.

"Fine," she snapped, shoving the document back at me. "If you want to play hard to get, I'll play along."

As I walked out of the room, I could hear her voice, soft and soothing, comforting Leo as he began to sob.

Once, that sound would have ripped my heart out. Now, all I felt was a profound, liberating sense of relief.

My lawyer called a moment later. "The copyright reclamation agreement is drafted. We'll serve it to her representatives the day after tomorrow."

The thought of Aurora receiving that notice on the day of her one-thousandth concert, her crowning achievement…

I couldn't help it. I started to laugh.