On the eve of our new song’s release, I vanished, taking the lyrics with me.
Julian called me 999 times.
We said we’d get married after this song dropped. What is this, then?
Someone saw the lyrics online. Are you trying to dump me?
He didn’t know. I was in prison, accused of accidentally killing a thug while intervening to help someone. Both my ears had been pierced, leaving me deaf. I couldn’t hear a sound.
I signed to a guard, pleading for them to send a message on my behalf.
【I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore. I’m going solo.】
1
When I saw Julian again, he was the owner of a major record label.
After the holidays, the sanctuary was bustling with visitors. Important clients were coming to seek blessings for a new venture, so I quickly pulled on my yellow vest to help.
I’d only been out of prison for two months. No one would hire an ex-con like me.
Luckily, Father Michael took me in as a volunteer, providing food and lodging, plus a modest stipend of a few hundred dollars a month.
I was saving diligently, hoping to afford a better cochlear implant.
I looked up and saw Julian.
He hadn’t changed. He was still the man I deeply loved in my memories, instantly overlapping with the present.
“This place is so stuffy, let’s just donate and go!”
The girl beside him looked impatient, fanning her hand in front of her nose.
“Didn’t you say you wanted the new album to be a smash hit?” Julian playfully tapped her nose. “I told you about the traditions and superstitions of this industry. Don’t blame fate if things go south!”
His voice was patient and gentle.
His eyes were practically glued to her.
“Fine, I’ll just get my blessings and leave.”
“You need three incense sticks… I’m talking to you, are you deaf?”
It wasn’t until the girl raised her voice that I noticed the anger in her brows. I hurried to take out the incense, lit it, and handed it over.
Julian didn’t even glance my way.
Was it my current appearance that kept him from recognizing me, or was he simply unwilling to have anything to do with a betrayer like me?
“Ah!”
A scream shattered the air, and before I could even react, a slap sent me sprawling to the ground.
“Are you trying to burn me alive?”
The girl clutched her red hand.
I fumbled to pick up my old, broken cochlear implant and put it on, bowing repeatedly in apology.
“It hurts so much.” The girl leaned into Julian’s embrace. “I have a photoshoot tomorrow for promotions. What if it leaves a scar?”
Julian’s eyes were filled with tenderness as he gently blew on her hand.
“It’s okay, baby. When we get home, I’ll apply my special scar-fading cream. If it does scar, we’ll just get a tattoo to cover it. I’ll get one with you.”
He rolled up his sleeve and patted his arm.
The tattoo of my name, “Cassie,” was gone.
Once, I’d cut my arm badly on glass, and the doctors warned it might scar. Julian knew how much I loved wearing sleeveless tops, so he researched old remedies and made a special scar cream.
Even with nightly applications, a faint scar remained. He, worried I’d be upset, suggested I get his name, “Julian,” tattooed on my arm, and he’d get “Cassie” on his.
Now, my last trace had been erased.
His exclusive affection, once mine, now belonged to someone else.
I tugged at my burned sleeve, desperate to hide my embarrassment.
My cochlear implant seemed to be damaged again. I watched their lips move, but I couldn’t quite hear their voices. I just kept tapping it.
“I’m talking to you!” The girl shoved me hard. “Is ‘sorry’ all you’ve got? A volunteer, listening to music with headphones on duty?”
Julian glanced at me, his expression distant and cold.
Father Michael rushed over to intervene, but I stopped him.
“I’m sorry.” I bowed deeply again. “If you want to get even, you can burn me back.”
I exposed my un-tattooed arm and straightened my back.
“Forget it.”
Julian wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulder. “No need to waste time on insignificant people. It wouldn’t look good if the media caught us.”
He leaned in and whispered something to her, and she immediately blushed, her tears turning into a smile.
“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the car.”
Even her glare at me softened a little.
Julian pulled out a check and waved it. “Father Michael knows, Starlight Records donates the most to this sanctuary every year.”
“I hope you’ll be more discerning when hiring volunteers. Don’t let people who slack off and mooch off you work here, understand?”
Father Michael looked at me with a pained expression, then nodded.
It was then I understood the emotion in Julian’s eyes.
It wasn’t love, not even hatred. It was a profound disgust that he could never forgive.
He was the kind of gentle person who’d just brush himself off and say he was fine, even if he got knocked over…
His hatred for me—wasn’t that exactly what I’d hoped for five years ago when I made my decision?
Cassie, you’re just a deaf ex-con. What more are you hoping for?
2
Father Michael, in his kindness, allowed me to stay in the dorm until the new volunteer started.
I began to pack my luggage.
Two blocks from the dorm was the dark alley where my fate had been rewritten five years ago.
It all started with how Julian and I met. We’d met at a bar, kindred spirits. I carried my guitar, accompanying him as we chased our dreams in New York.
He played keyboard and composed, I played guitar and wrote lyrics.
After countless rejected resumes and failed songwriting competitions, we spent a year painstakingly perfecting a masterpiece.
We showed it to a producer we knew, who said it had a high chance of becoming a massive hit.
Julian promised me that no matter the song’s reception, he would marry me as soon as it dropped.
That night, I was returning to our studio with the final revised lyrics. Passing through the dark alley, I suddenly heard a faint cry for help. I immediately recognized Chloe’s unique way of expressing herself—Julian’s sister, who had autism.
I grabbed an iron rod from the alley entrance and charged in.
“Let her go! Or I’ll call the police!”
Chloe’s clothes were disheveled, and she looked at me with pleading eyes.
“Well, isn’t this convenient? One for each of us.”
There were two burly men. Outnumbered and outmatched, I could only shield Chloe behind me. As they grinned menacingly and lunged at me, I frantically swung the weapon in my hand.
Suddenly, a scream ripped through the air as one of the men slipped.
The iron rod pierced his chest, and blood gushed out.
Seeing that someone was killed, the surviving assailant fled the scene. Chloe collapsed from exhaustion.
Her mother received an automatic alert message from Chloe’s phone and arrived even before the police.
She knelt before me.
“Cassie, I know you’re a good girl.”
“Chloe has autism. Her life is already difficult enough. If her reputation is stained, her life will be ruined forever.”
“I’ll take her away. When the police arrive, please don’t mention her presence.”
Julian and Chloe had lost their father at a young age and were raised by their mother. Mrs. Davies was right; Chloe was emotionally unstable due to her autism and unsuitable to testify in court.
I didn’t think much of it then, believing I was simply intervening to help, and that the man had just accidentally slipped.
But I never imagined that the man I’d accidentally killed was Blake, a notorious playboy from a powerful family in the city.
On my very first day in prison, a fellow inmate pierced my eardrums, leaving me deaf.
When I woke up in the infirmary, a guard handed me a phone. It showed 326 missed calls from Julian. And a stack of messages. One voice message was from Mrs. Davies.
“Cassie, I’m so sorry. I can’t let Chloe testify. That family is too powerful for us to cross. I hope you can forgive me.”
“As for Julian, I made up a lie to deceive him.”
“If Julian knew the truth, with his temper, he’d blow things out of proportion. I hope you can willingly break up with him.”
“If you want compensation, I’ll sell everything we own to give it to you… I just want my two children to live safe and happy lives.”
I touched my bandaged ears.
The doctor said my hearing was severely damaged, with only 5% left. I would have to live with a cochlear implant for the rest of my life. The beautiful sounds of this world would be forever lost to me.
How could I, like this, continue to chase musical dreams with Julian?
So, I asked a guard to help me send a message.
I used the most decisive method to become a betrayer, to vanish completely from Julian’s life.
From then on, I served my sentence peacefully until my release. I heard Julian left New York not long after. He returned five years later.
He became the owner of a record label, and I was an ex-con scorned by everyone.
I just never expected to see him again at a production company after leaving the sanctuary. I’d finally found a company willing to accept my lyrics, so I went to apply with my resume.
I waited in the reception room for a long time when the door suddenly opened. A familiar face—it was Marcus, our old bandmate who’d chased dreams with us in New York.
“Well, if it isn’t the infamous plagiarist, Cassie! This lyric sheet of yours—you didn’t scam it from some gullible fool, did you?”
“Julian, you’re here. Take a look for me, will you?”
3
“Marcus, who’s here?”
A couple, arm-in-arm, walked out of the recording studio. Julian stiffened when he saw me.
“Aren’t you that girl from the sanctuary the other day…?” Stella frowned slightly.
Marcus smiled at me.
“Let me introduce you. This is Stella, Julian’s heavily promoted new singer and his current girlfriend.”
“And as for this one…” He looked at me meaningfully. “Julian’s former bandmate, the notorious plagiarist, Cassie.”
The word “plagiarist” hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I looked up and saw a twisted amusement playing on Julian’s face.
“So, it’s you.”
Stella sneered. “Julian’s downfall was all because of you… If I’d known, I would have slapped you twice more at the sanctuary!”
“The sanctuary?”
“Cassie, have you changed your ways?” Marcus scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’re repenting your sins and thinking of becoming a nun?”
“No, I was just volunteering there…”
Before I could finish, Stella’s palm connected with my face.
Julian grabbed her tightly, a flicker of panic in his eyes.
“Don’t hold me back! I want to get revenge for you!”
She was furious. As I bent down to pick up my cochlear implant, she stomped down.
“Still listening to music? Is it the song you stole?”
Stella lifted her foot, cruelly crushing my last shred of dignity. My cochlear implant shattered into pieces under her shoe.
Julian watched with a twisted amusement, not saying a word to stop her. But then he suddenly bent down and grasped Stella’s foot.
“Does it hurt?” He used his hand to brush away the fragments of my cochlear implant, his expression one of utter disgust. “Why get so angry? It’s not worth it to bother with someone like this.”
Someone like this?
Yes, I was a plagiarist, an ex-con, and deaf. My cochlear implant was destroyed, but even without ears, I could discern the overflowing tenderness in Julian’s voice.
After five years of being deaf, I had long since learned to read lips.
“It doesn’t hurt… I just feel bad about these shoes. You had them custom-made for me from abroad…” Stella’s face was filled with regret.
“It’s okay, I’ll order you another pair.”
Julian casually tossed the broken high heel into the trash. He swept Stella into his arms and carried her away, not even sparing a glance for me.
I stared intently at the trash can, wondering how many pairs of cochlear implants that one pair of shoes could buy.
Marcus threw the lyric sheet at me. “Our small studio can’t afford to be associated with an acclaimed plagiarist like you… Take your stuff and get out. Don’t you dare linger around Julian again…”
I bent down to pick up my shattered dignity scattered on the floor.
My cochlear implant was utterly destroyed. No matter how I tried to piece it together, it could never be restored, just like my image in Julian’s heart.
He hated me so much. I sighed softly, a bitter smile playing on my lips as I entered the elevator.
A hand blocked the elevator door. Julian backed me into a corner, his gaze piercing. “Can’t you take it?”
I turned my face away.
“Aren’t you supposed to be so resilient?” he scoffed. “Running off with our love song to a sugar daddy… Didn’t your sugar daddy keep you well-hidden? Why are you showing your face here?”
“That’s right, he got bored and dumped me.” I lifted my head and smiled. “So I’m really broke now. Is that answer satisfactory, Mr. Davies?”
Julian’s lips pressed into a tight line, his gaze deepening.
“Why don’t you give me some money? Consider it payment for the three years I spent chasing dreams with you… I can give you anything you want, even my body…” I grabbed Julian’s hand and pressed it to my chest, but he flung my hand off.
“Shameless!”
His breath hitched, and he turned his face away, trembling.
“I wouldn’t touch a body as dirty as yours.”
“Tomorrow morning at eight, at The Blue Note. We need a guitarist for the new song release… Fifty thousand for one night. Will you come?”
“Yes.”
4
At seven-thirty, I arrived at The Blue Note early. The decor was identical to where Julian and I first met. Only the neon sign outside and the banner above the stage were different.
↓ ↓ Download the Novel Master app, Search 【 286562 】reads the whole book. ↓ ↓
NovelShort
