Page 65 of Sins (The Sins Trilogy 1)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Iris
My phone buzzes again, but I ignore it and continue to sip a cappuccino at the Starbucks two doors away from the piano store.
Byron stirs the ice in his latte, his motion elegant and unhurried. That’s his greatest charm—no matter what, nothing fazes him. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s classically handsome, with a boldly chiseled face, stunning blue eyes and dark brown hair. A white button-down shirt is draped over his lean torso, and the coffee-colored slacks fit his narrow pelvis and long legs perfectly. He radiates an air of entitled affluence without trying, which I guess comes from his background. His family is filthy rich.
The women in the café aren’t immune. Many are openly staring, and some are even giving me an envious glare or two. I regard them with mild amusement. Their anger with me is totally misplaced, since I’m not in the picture that way. He isn’t mine, not like they think.
As usual, Byron’s oblivious. Or maybe just pretending not to notice. I can never tell.
“I should’ve gotten a macchiato.” His baritone voice is as lazy and cultured as the man himself. He sighs, then glances over at my phone, which buzzes…again. “Sure you don’t want to answer that?”
“I’m sure.” I don’t want to deal with Sam right now. “And I blame you.”
“Moi?” He puts a hand to his chest.
“If you hadn’t put that recording up on Facebook and YouTube, none of this”—I gesture at the phone—“would’ve happened. Sam’s already upset I’m back in the country, and he hates it when I ‘show off.’”
A distant uncle, Sam has become my de facto guardian since the accident that killed my parents and almost ended my life nine years ago. Normally, I wouldn’t have needed anybody to act as a guardian. I was already eighteen. But a year-long coma meant somebody had to make decisions on my behalf. If Sam hadn’t stepped up, I would’ve died. The doctors wanted to unplug me after a couple months, saying the situation was hopeless. It was Sam who kept the faith and refused to allow it.
“Nothing pleases that old man, Rizzy,” Byron says carelessly, using the nickname he gave me. “Besides, you weren’t showing off. You were teaching the idiot how it’s done in your own imitable fashion. Why not share with the world?” He looks at his phone. “People are loving it. Over five hundred comments and likes already, and it’s been less than an hour.”
I take a slow sip of my brew. Byron’s right about one thing: I did show that abusive jerk how it’s done. I couldn’t believe the nerve of the guy, coming into the store, berating his girlfriend and the saleswoman, then sitting down in front of the Bösendorfer I wanted to try and playing Liszt’s Grand Galop Chromatique. He must’ve thought the music would showcase his virtuosity. Guess he didn’t understand that if he played badly, it would make him look like a toddler trying to compete in the hundred-meter dash in the Olympics.
“If he hadn’t called his girlfriend a talentless hack, I wouldn’t have done it.” I sigh as the thousandth text arrives. “Sam’s probably ready to explode now. He never wanted me back in L.A.”
“Why not?”
“He said I should go to France—Chopin’s birthplace—or Berlin, to see Liszt’s childhood home.” I roll my eyes. “It would help my musicality, or so he claimed.”
“Seriously? All he has to do is Google to know Chopin was from Poland and Liszt came from Hungary.”
Sam claims he’d rather have me focus on music because he knows it means a lot to me. He doesn’t care that I can’t be a concert pianist anymore. He says it doesn’t matter that I can’t take care of myself financially via music, because he can provide for me. The only thing he’s interested in is my happiness…
But every time I try to assert my independence, he subjects me to stories of how he had to take care of me for so long, how he ignored the doctors who thought I should go off life support because he knew what was best for me deep in his heart.
“It hurts me you won’t consider my perspective, Iris,” he’s said more than once. “Remember that old friend of yours? You were happy to see him, but it turned out he just wanted to use you to get to me and my money? What did I say when you saw him? That you should be careful, right?” He sighs. “I’m only doing this for you because it’s the least I owe your parents, God rest their souls.”
Part of me suspects what he really wants is for me wander the world until the day I die, but another part can’t deny all that he’s done for me. And for all I know, maybe he truly believes traveling is what makes me happy.
But enough. I can’t let his charity or good intentions derail me from what I have to do.
“It took me a week to convince him I’m tired of traveling,” I tell Byron. “I’m going to be twenty-eight soon, I haven’t lived in one place for longer than a couple of months in the last six years, and I’ve never held a job. I want to settle down and do what normal people do.” It’s the same rationale I gave Sam.
More importantly, I want to fully regain my lost memories. But that’s something I’m keeping to myself. I don’t like to discuss the most significant effect of being comatose for a year—partial amnesia. It feels awkward and embarrassing, like undressing in front of an audience, to admit I don’t remember or know things I should know—favorite cartoons, the friends I had in high school, what prom was like and so much more.
Of course, Sam is very much aware of my amnesia, but if he finds out I’m going to try to fix it, he’ll make himself sick with worry. I tried before, with therapists and specialists, and it went nowhere, just made me increasingly frustrated and angry. That’s one of the major reasons Sam made me travel so much, ensuring I’d have no reason to set foot in the States. He believes being surrounded by new people and new environments is helping me to heal, both mentally and spiritually, because there’s no pressure to remember things from my past. New people don’t know enough about me to sense that I have partial amnesia.
But I’m not going to see any more specialists. It didn’t work back then, and I don’t think anything’s going to magically change this time. I’m trying something else—something totally new and inspired by my stay in Raiding, Austria.
And the first step is living my life, rather than running away and calling it “travel.” Becoming gainfully employed is the perfect start.
“You’re going to get a job?” Byron says. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I want to prove to myself I can. I can’t rely on my uncle’s generosity forever. I need to become self-sufficient and live a normal life like everyone else. Nine to five, you know,” I say, giving a convincing partial truth.
Byron leans closer with a half-teasing, half-serious grin. “If Sam gets stingy, don’t worry. You have me, Rizzy. I have more than enough money to support you in the style you’ve become accustomed to.”
