Page 88 of Echoes of a Silent Song
I set the Coke down with a little more force than necessary, and it thunked loudly onto the desk.“I told you.I knocked your books on the floor by accident.I was checking a math problem.”
He plopped the notebook on the desk and folded his arms across hischest.“The back of my Whitehall acceptance letter is a funny place to look for that.”
Iknewit.He knew what Professor Hochsteiner had written on the back of his letter—aboutmypiece.And he hadn’t told me.On purpose.
He hadn’t forgotten.He chose not to tell me, for reasons only he knew.
Something in me snapped.All the frustration of the last few weeks—months, maybe my whole life—balled up inside me, fierce and hot.Maybe anger, maybe God, maybe a combination of both.But something gave me the courage to meet Victor Nelson’s eyes and ask the question that had been on my heart since last week.
“When were you going to tell me what Professor Hochsteiner wrote?”
Victor regarded me like I was a fly buzzing around his head.“It was on my acceptance letter.With my name on it.Addressed to me.It wasn’t any of your business, Iris.”He lifted his chin.“Going through someone’s mail is a crime, you know.”
“Only if it’s unopened.”I didn’t actually know that, but I’d bet he didn’t either.“And that piece you sent for your audition wasmypiece.”
“Which you gave tome, at which point it becamemypiece.As far as Whitehall is concerned,Iwrote it.Professor Hochsteiner thinks that’smywork.That’s what got me in.”
“But you and I both know you’re not the one who wrote it.”I punctuated my last few words with angry gestures.“‘A brilliance we rarely see.’‘Quite extraordinary.’‘Remarkably gifted.’All that was written aboutme, Victor.Not you.No one up there knows the quality of your work, because you didn’t send your work.You sent mine.”
He stood, cheeks pink.“And you gave it to me.It was your idea.I didn’t ask you for your piece.I tried not to take it.The only reason I did was because I was desperate.This whole mess is your fault, Iris, not mine.”
I stepped to the side as though to dodge the arrow of blame he’d just shot my way.“What are you going to do when you get to Whitehall and you can’t get any good ideas?Huh?Did you think of that?”
“Of course I did,” he said through gritted teeth.“And you ruined my plan for that too.We were supposed to go together.Composetogether.Become Victor Nelson and Iris Nelson.Names in lights, remember?”
Suddenly the plan took a sinister turn.Two names in lights, but would only one have been doing the actual work?
“And if you truly were the genius Hochsteiner thinks you are, then how come you couldn’t do it twice?How come one of your pieces was ‘a brilliance we rarely see’”—he made air quotes—“and the other one wasn’t even good enough to get you in?Honestly, Iris.Your ego is the size of Alaska right now, which is exactly why I didn’t show you that note.This is what I thought would happen.Do you ever think about any-one’s needs but your own?”
“I’mthe one who only thinks about myself?”If I weren’t furious, I’d have laughed in his face.“What about you?This whole time it’s been about you, you, you.Nothing but you.Your family issues.Your draft number getting called.Your future.Whitehall wasn’t just about your future, Victor.It was about my future too.”
“Oh, please, Iris.”His neck and cheeks mottled a deep red.“Your family is loaded.You can afford to do whatever you want, whenever you want.And you’re a girl, so you don’t ever have to worry about getting drafted either.You get all the lucky breaks.You have no idea how good you have it.You have so much privilege you can’t even imagine what it’s like to be from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“And yet the things I wanted most in the world, money can’t buy.”My eyes filled with sudden tears.My words were truer than I realized.
I couldn’t make my parents accept me as myself.
I couldn’t make Whitehall see my talent.
And I couldn’t make Victor love me.Not the way I wanted and needed to be loved.I wanted to be loved thoroughly and completely—not for what I could give to someone but for who I was.And nobody in my life loved me like that.Absolutely nobody.
Wait.Someone did.
A gentle rebuke hit my heart, beautiful and bittersweet.Jesus loved me that way.He loved me exactly as I was.So much that he’d given his life for me.And I’d been chasing everything but him.Worshipping the image of what I wanted my future to be.
That was what Victor was.A bronze statue.An idol.Shiny on the outside but hollow on the inside.He didn’t love me.And I’d been foolishenough to love him.To give him my music.Music that had once belonged only to God.
And I’d given Victor my heart too.
Well, I was taking them back.Both my heart and my music.But not to keep for myself.
To give back to the one who gave me those things in the first place.
“I’m sorry, Iris.”Victor reached for my hand.“Forgive me.I’m just a little on edge.”
I pulled my hand away.“Why?Because you’re afraid you won’t be able to handle the high expectations Whitehall has for you?”
Pure rage filled his eyes.His face.It scared me, and I wanted to run, but as soon as it appeared, he tamped it down.
