by C. L. Stone
(Up to the performer)
Victor
Victor, for a short time, was alone in his bedroom. The nurse had gone. Maybe to get food or supplies or to rest.
For the longest time, Victor stared at the ceiling. No cell phone was available. There was no phone in the room.
Rather dangerous since he was just out of the hospital.
He anticipated his parents coming in at any time to tell him they’d put him on a plane.
At times, he told himself he would fight. He’d fight them. He’d do what he could to remain here.
Did he even have the strength?
At other times, he struggled with the idea of allowing them to take him.
He’d yelled at Mr. Buble. Since then, he hadn’t seen or heard from anyone.
No one on his own team had come around. Did they not care?
They were smart enough to figure out how to talk to him if they wanted. Luke could come through the window.
If they really wanted him.
Where the misery came from, he wasn’t sure, but it stayed with him. Even as he tried to tell himself he was being stupid. Of course, they would help him. Sometimes timing was everything.
But every moment no one showed up, he doubted.
He doubted they’d come. Could they even help him now?
Once, drinking and taking a prescription that wasn’t his, they could forgive.
Twice? Driving while high? North had said to get Sang, to park and wait. That’s it. He couldn’t even do that.
He shouldn’t have been high.
Jay… Rocky… Gabriel had suggested if they got the others high enough, they’d be unable to do their job. And maybe rat out what was going on.
Except they’d underestimated the two of them. Should have known. They’d never done pot before.
Didn’t think they’d have that bad a reaction.
Lightweight.
No excuse. He’d probably face an Academy trial at best.
Maybe they had to keep their distance.
Victor Morgan. Hospitalized after an intoxicated car crash.
Were there newspaper reporters in the streets outside the door?
Is that why they left the hospital?
Willing to risk his life for the family.
♥♥♥
When he woke again, someone else was at the piano.
Tinkering with the keys.
For a moment, he thought it was Sang. They let her up here? His heart soared.
She played piano?
In short sections, she played. A stanza of something or other. He wasn’t even sure it was any sort of song, because sometimes the keys didn’t sound pleasant. Sometimes she repeated notes to make it sound like she was playing something and then went in a different direction.
It took him much too long, with the medication fading back to allow his brain to work, to realize it wasn’t Sang. It was Brie. How could he have thought otherwise? They didn’t look alike.
Suddenly Brie stopped and turned her head to him. Her gaze was a little cloudy, and yet around the edges of her eyes, she was tense. Her dark hair hung around her face. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt, very unlike how she was at the party. “I’m waking you up,” she said.
“How…” he started to say but couldn’t find the right question. There were too many questions floating around in his brain.
She went to the bed, peering down at him. “Your mom called my mom. She wanted you to come with us.”
With Brie? He shook his head.
She sat down on the bed, reaching for his hand. “Victor. They’re going to come for you. And if you don’t leave, the police, they’ll take you in. Your lawyer can’t save you this time.”
“Can’t leave,” Victor breathed out.
Brie pressed her lips together. “She found out. My mom. She’s sending me back to Europe, but to a house far away from school. My mom offered to take you there with us.” She leaned in. “I don’t think I can take being alone with my mom. Don’t make me.”
Fire seemed to fill his lungs. “Brie…”
“You can’t stay. If you’re in Europe before they arrest you, say to a specialist doctor for recovery, it’d give time to possibly run a trial without you. Your mother wants minimal exposure, and you’re lucky you’re still a minor. None of the court proceedings will be public. The issue will die, maybe in a couple of months.”
He shook his head. This was all wrong. He couldn’t go.
“They’ll send you to jail,” Brie said. “Juvenile detention. If you stay. Even if it won’t be public, you’d still have to face that. It won’t make a difference.”
Would he go to jail? Was that what awaited him after this? No wonder the Academy stayed away. It was often too risky to go in after an Academy member once the police were involved. And Sang… if he went in, was there a way they’d expose her? Would all this risk exposure of the Academy if he was arrested? They’d send an Academy lawyer… but he was still underage and this was complicated.
He debated the answer. His heart hurt. His lungs burned. His body was numb and heavy and in pain. Calculating answers became too hard.
Brie turned away, looking toward the piano. “It won’t be so bad,” she said, although her tone was slow, her shoulders down, looking defeated. “I tried. You tried. We couldn’t make it work. They still have control over us. Maybe they always will. But maybe after a few months, we could find a way.”
It wasn’t her fault. He felt bad. Her world was ending, too. If she couldn’t go back to her school, she couldn’t go back to her girlfriend, she was every bit like him right now. She felt forced, and she had no Academy to offer any assistance.
Was there no hope? Was that why he was still here? His family offered an escape, and maybe the Academy wanted him to take it.
Maybe they didn’t want him to be here.
♥♥♥
Time passed. He was in and out of consciousness. Sometimes Brie was here. Sometimes it was the nurse.
He pretended to sleep anyway. They were waiting. He wasn’t sure for what.
At one point, he was alone.
He shifted in the bed, and slowly, he sat up.
The room had been picked up. The music the nurse had spilled over the room had been stacked neatly on top of the piano.
Of all things, he sort of wished he could take the piano and run away with it.
It was stuck here though. Pieced together inside this room, because it was too big to fit in any door or window. It’d have to get taken apart to be removed.
And yet, he wished he could get it out. His parents would, if he agreed. They’d jump at the chance, if it meant he’d do what they wanted.
The notes of his requiem, the one the nurse had looked at, filled his head.
The music in his head was louder than ever. It seemed every time he woke up, he heard it.
The requiem. No words. Not intended to be sung at all. He liked it like that. Simple. Slow.
A weird thing, a requiem. A song for the souls of the dead, a music teacher had told him once.
A song for the dead.
A song for the soul.
When he’d pieced it together, he just liked the style of it.
He felt it suited him. Would he disappear soon? To some unknown location in Europe? Would this be the last time he was here?
Could he get out?
Getting out meant he likely faced being arrested. If he left…
Suddenly, Brie stood in the doorway. She’d held a cup of water, but the moment she saw him sitting up, she dropped it. The water spilled across the carpet.
She went to him.
“Are you okay?” Brie asked him.
He nodded slowly.
“I can’t…” he said weakly.
She tilted her head. “What?”
“I can’t leave her.” He reached for Brie’s hand. “Sang. I can’t leave her.” Of all things, that’s a
ll he could think of.
He couldn’t go that far away from her.
She squeezed his hand back and sat next to him. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Always a choice,” he said. “You have one.”
She started to shake her head.
He wouldn’t listen. He didn’t know the answer. “Always.”
He wasn’t even sure how. Maybe it was impossible.
Was he choosing the wrong thing? Could he fight them?
“Brie,” he hissed out her name, trying to fight off his clouded brain. “You have to try. You shouldn’t have to disappear.” He sniffed. “We shouldn’t have to die. I don’t want to die.”
She seemed confused. He wondered if she could understand.
The requiem’s main tune held strong in his mind.
A song for the souls of the dead.
If they were in Europe, coming back would be harder. His mother would figure out a way to control him again.
He might live, but who he was would die. The real him.
Brie sighed and released him, heading to the door. “I’m supposed to alert her when you’re awake.”
“Brie…”
She paused at the door of his room and didn’t turn around, but she waited.
“It’s not over,” he said. “You help me. I’ll help you.”
She didn’t answer him, but she went out into the hall.
Victor wondered if he should lay down again and pretend to sleep.
Was that the only reason he was here? Was he here if he was unconscious? The doctor said he couldn’t fly if he was asleep.
He’d pretend to be unconscious. If they made him…
♥♥♥
His mother materialized in the doorway of his room. She wore dark pants and a red sweater, smoothed and styled. Always perfect.
She remained in the doorway, hovering. The light was off, just the light from the half-open windows lit the room.
She crossed the room and closed the curtains. “Thought I told the nurse to keep these down,” she said.
Victor swallowed, trying to find the words to tell her he couldn’t go to Europe. Not with Brie.
Before he could figure it out, she turned to him, inspecting him. He hadn’t even realized he had been changed out of a hospital gown and into soft clothes, pajamas, but they could pass for street clothes.
Ready for anything.
“The helicopter should be here shortly,” his mother said.
He frowned. “No.”
“No what?”
He glared at her. “I’m not going.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve had enough,” she spat. He turned to him fully, the fury doubling until it escaped every part of her. “I’ve tried, Victor. I’ve tried everything. I give you what you want, and you take too much. I ask you to do simple things, and you screw it up.”
He twitched. Her words stung. His mother hated him.
“How could you do this to this family?” she continued. She kept her voice low, as if she feared, in her own house, someone might overhear her say so. “How could you tarnish our name? I should have never let you out of my sight.”
“I’m not going,” he said again. He had nothing else to say.
He wouldn’t go. If they made him, he’d find a way to escape.
He hated that Mr. Buble wasn’t here. The others weren’t here.
But he didn’t have to accept his mother pushing him.
Even if they didn’t want him, he didn’t want to go.
He’d go to jail.
He’d rot there.
The headlines would rejoice at the downfall of Victor Morgan: once the prodigy, now the tragedy.
But nothing, nothing could make him go with her.
She ruined everything.
Even if Sang didn’t want him anymore after this, or she couldn’t be around him because she’d be caught in his downfall…
That’s the only time he reconsidered the idea.
It was like she could read his mind. “She can’t go, Victor. You told me she couldn’t be involved in any press. I took your word.” His mother paced the room, examining every fine detail of it. “I tried my best. I tried everything.”
“I didn’t want this.”
“A million other children would have,” she said. “And you did want this. You wanted to play piano.”
He frowned. He had… but stopped wanting to play for them a long time ago.
“We encouraged it,” she said. “We just asked for obedience. I expected at some point there would be a screw-up.” She sighed and tilted her head back. “We all do, Victor. We all do. I was your age when I was engaged to your father.”
He didn’t answer her, only glared.
She stopped her pacing and turned to face him. “Don’t you see? Don’t marry so young. You don’t know what you want yet. I’ll protect you. Do you think Sang will be your only girlfriend ever?”
He wanted to say yes, but again, he hesitated. He didn’t want to answer her.
She’d married young, and she regretted it. And she often told him not to.
Even now, he felt the medallion at his neck, the heart shield. Protect your heart.
She continued, “There will be other girls. Plenty of them. And there will be other opportunities. But we have to go away now. The people here, the media, they’ll forget you eventually. In Europe, they won’t even know you or your face. You could do whatever you wanted.” She came a step closer, and her tone softened. “Are you tired of the piano? You don’t have to play anymore. We can start over. You tell me what you want, and we’ll do it. Together.”
His lip quivered. The promise she was making, wanting to hear him out, to give up all this.
To let him make the choice now.
She was trying, wasn’t she? Could he blame her? She was doing her best to protect her only child. His head, filled with the times when she seemed almost human, asking him his opinion and looking out for him. Maybe he was being a brat, like she often said when he complained. Was it her fault she risked his chance with the Academy if she didn’t know it existed?
The Academy, his friends, and Sang. The only things that stopped him, but would they want him to go?
Memories were so foggy. They gave him everything they could.
Doubt crept in again. Why was this so hard?
How did she do this to him?
She came closer again, reaching out, holding his face at his cheeks. “Victor. I can make everything right.”
She did this to him when she wanted something very much, usually when he wanted something else.
It hurt so much to want to tell her no. He still didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to upset her. He was struggling with his reasons.
When he didn’t answer, she turned away from him. She went over to the nurse’s bag, and pilfered through it. “It’s okay, darling,” she cooed, a tone that was familiar to him.
Often when she encouraged his father to drink.
When she came back, she was holding a syringe. She sniffed and she showed it to him. “You’re supposed to get a half of this.”
He imagined it was pain medicine.
“Just trust me,” she said, and she turned, heading toward the IV. “I’ll fix everything.”
His heart raced, his brain making the connection. She wanted to drug him. So he was compliant.
“No!” he screamed.
And he reached to his arm, and he ripped the IV right out. The tube still hung in, but the rest of it tore away, drips coming out of the tip.
He covered his hand. It had hurt. And the piece still inserted in him stung to touch it. He might have damaged it.
His mother gasped and seethed. “Stop it.” She went to the door, calling the nurse.
He tried to get out of bed but the nurse was there in an instant.
“He accidentally broke the line,” his mother told her.
Behind the nurse,
Brie appeared, followed by her mother, Mrs. Turner.
Mrs. Turner, face caked in makeup and wearing a flower print dress, shook her head and looked sorrowful. “My goodness, the poor thing.”
“I don’t want it,” Victor said, still clutching his hand. He didn’t want to give them another chance to drug him.
The nurse seemed sympathetic. “Please let me get the rest out, okay? Let’s not cause more problems.” She went to the windows and opened all the curtains. “I just need some light.”
“Let me turn the room light on,” Jasmine said.
“No, natural light on this side. Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.”
He hated that they were there, that he felt he had to squander what he’d been trying to do, but he also allowed the nurse to look at his hand and try to pull the tubing out. “I don’t want more medicine. And I don’t want to go to Europe. I want to stay.”
His mother turned to Mrs. Turner. “See what I put up with?”
Mrs. Turner smirked. “Brie was the same way. She’s different now. It took some therapy. We told them we needed her to be more compliant. They helped a lot. They could help him, too.”
Brie didn’t say anything. She held her phone in her hands. After a minute, she used it, like sending text messages or something.
He had no support in the room. He was all alone.
He didn’t know how to get out of this.
“Maybe he does need some help,” his mother said. “If they can be trusted.”
“Absolutely,” Mrs. Turner said. “A little more expensive, but always trustworthy.”
The nurse got the piece out of Victor and inspected the area. “I’ll have to try the other arm. You might want to turn in the bed, sleep the other way.”
Victor didn’t know what to do. He was still too weak to just get up and walk out. Could he fight them all? How could he get out?
Suddenly, Mrs. Turner’s cell phone, somewhere in her dress, rang. She pulled it out of her dress pocket and answered. “Hello, dear,” she said. “I’ll be back soo—” She paused. “What?” Another pause. Followed by a stronger, more shocked tone. “What? When?”
She turned, facing Brie.
Brie was dead-faced. Her phone was in her hand, but it hung at her hip.
Brie didn’t really respond to her. She just dazed out.
“What’s happening?” Jasmine asked her.
