Melody

"Oh my gosh, this place is amazing," Alyssa gushes as soon as she walks through the front door. Her wide green eyes practically glow against the reflection of the foyer's bright chandelier.

I shrug. I've been meaning to properly explore the place, but it doesn't feel like anything more than a frivolous task. There are plenty of more productive things I could be doing with my time instead. "It's an apartment. As long as it's clean and functional, I'm happy."

She just rolls her eyes as she takes off her thick knitted scarf, wrapped multiple times around her neck. "Oh Mel, so many people would kill to have what you have."

"Of course I'm grateful," I defend. Mom and dad and I used to live in a tiny apartment, probably one eighth the size of the house mom and I live in now. Thin walls, noisy neighbours, creaky floorboards, and leaking pipes - but it always felt like a home. That feeling is nothing but a distant memory now. "It's just a bit much, you know how my mom can be."

She chuckles. "Yeah. Aunt Annie sure is something. It's been like twelve years but I still remember your seventh birthday."

It happened to overlap with the week I played at Carnegie Hall for the first time. Mom was ecstatic and went all out with an enormous party to celebrate. In hindsight, she was probably more excited about my performance than my birthday. I just remember a vague blur of music, lights, and fireworks.

I lead her down the long hall, illuminated by miniature chandeliers hung along the ceiling to the kitchen. We pass fancy paintings that I have absolutely no idea who painted and colourful flowers I don't know who has been watering. She takes a seat on one of the metallic silver bar stools along the kitchen island.

"Care for a drink?"

She perks up. "Got any wine?"

I take a peek past the crystal clear glass door into the sleek, dark wooden wine cabinet. The racks are full of bottles. I pick a red wine in a fancy looking green tinted bottle with a minimalist matte black label. My knowledge of alcohol is limited to some wines from vineyards mom dragged me to on my days "off."

After some scrounging, I manage to find a couple of wine glasses. I also make a mental note to label all of these cabinets.

"Oh my gosh, how do you even read this?" Alyssa's eyes are wide as I take a seat next to her.

She's flipping through a tattered grey folder I left on the island last night. It's full of partially completed pieces I've worked on. It's like a musical graveyard. Most pieces have been abandoned, dates scribbled in the corners go years back. Pencil markings are smudged over the pages, leaving blurry musical notes over unevenly drawn bars. Erased notes are still clearly visible, having pressed my pencil hard enough to permanently engrave the paper. Some pages have holes from jabbing my pencil into them out of frustration during exhausting late night writing.

"It's kind of amazing," she murmurs, still scanning the pages, "you're so quiet sometimes but you can turn music into these stories without even any words. I still remember listening to you play when we were little."

"Thanks Liss," I chuckle. "Most of those aren't very good though."

She slides the folder over to me, and I flip to the last page. "This is the only one in this book that I finished."

It's a short piece inspired by Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy in C Major, Op.15. It never saw the light of day though. I was never satisfied with it, even after months of trying. I decided I had to stop before it drove me insane.

She squints at it, skimming her eyes over the dense notes. "I'm not even going to pretend to understand what's going on here." If I recall correctly, Alyssa took piano lessons when we were kids. She lasted for a few months before getting bored and switching to the violin.

"That's alright," I laugh and pour the deep burgundy wine into two glasses and set them on the island.

Alyssa takes a long sip before giving me an excited smile, showing off her perfectly straight, pearly white teeth. "So how does going to a party tonight sound?"

I wrinkle my nose. "You know exactly how I think that sounds."

She laughs and rests her chin on her palm. "Come on, it's Friday night! You've been here for nearly two weeks now. Plus no one is going to know who you are, trust me." She rolls her eyes and takes another sip. "Classical music is definitely not this crowd's sort of thing."

I bite my lip. That does sound like a nice change of pace, after being surrounded by classical music fans for an entire year. Alyssa gets that sly smile on her face, the one where she knows she's close to getting me to cave. The same smile she gave me when she convinced me to join her in stealing extra cookies from grandma's cookie jar when we were four, or when she got me to help her put a fake spider in her brother's shoe when we were six.

After pondering for a moment, I shake my head. "I'm here to relax, Liss. I really need a break."

She gives me a sympathetic pat on my thigh. "I guess your life has been going forward in full force since we were kids," she says. "You didn't even get any real time to grieve for your dad before your mom took you away from us, huh."

I absentmindedly swirl my glass, watching the dark liquid create shimmery pink shadows against the white marble countertop. I push away any painful feelings her words bring back. "Yeah, I've really missed you, Liss."

I'm an only child, and Alyssa is the youngest with three older brothers. We were born two days apart and nearly inseparable while growing up. It felt as if half of me was ripped away when I left. We spent most of our teenage years in contact, texting and calling all the time, but communication is a two way street. Our street gradually became full of potholes, broken traffic lights, and eventually blocked off. In the past couple of years, we grew up, and apart.

Alyssa grins. "Ok, how about we go hang out at Michael's? It's chill there, he wanted me to go over anyway."

I grimace. "He's the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, right? The one who suggested interviewing me? You know how I feel about mixing my personal and professional lives."

Alyssa sighs and runs her hand through her hair. "As much as I love you, I still don't get why you do this, Mel. They stopped seven years ago!"

"Yeah, because that was when I started avoiding the public eye," I retort. It makes perfect sense to me, but no one else has been convinced.

She finishes the rest of her glass. I raise an eyebrow and glance down at mine, it's still nearly full. "Ok, ok, but Kappa Sigma's house is down the block from there, I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind some visitors," she says with a sly grin.

I can't imagine I'm going to like where this is going. "What's your point?"

"Cole's in that fraternity," she says and gives me a wink.

I feel my face beginning to burn with an embarrassed heat at the sound of his name. "I don't want to see him." I scowl and cross my arms.

"Well the pink in your cheeks says otherwise," she teases as she refills her glass.

"Alyssa," I groan.

Alyssa's always been a bit boy crazy. Whenever she called to talk, I swear she always either had a new boyfriend, or some poor guy who was being led on. Dating is so low on my list of priorities that it's barely ever crossed my mind. Between touring, practicing, and writing, how would I possibly have the time and energy to include consistently seeing another human being? Mom's always been fond of the idea though. You should date another musician! Whether it's for the sake of PR or her daughter's love life, I'll never know.

"Speaking of which, I heard he hasn't been able to get that interview with you yet. Michael is pissed at him," Alyssa chortles.

"I already said no," I pout.

I hear Mr. Carter chuckle as his footsteps, muffled by his slippers, enter the kitchen behind us. "Quite a persistent boy."

He takes out a pale yellow mug and places a chamomile tea bag inside, then fills a kettle. I can't help but giggle a little, watching the normally tough and serious Mr. Carter wearing a pair of pale periwinkle pajamas, drinking tea from a mug that looks tiny in his giant hands.

Alyssa rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "That's Cole for you. You must've bruised his giant ego pretty bad," she snorts. "Just talk to him!"

"As your security Ms. Aria, I'm obliged to tell you to stay away, but it doesn't seem like he means any harm," Mr. Carter adds, trying to hide an amused smile. "I suppose young love can make people do unexpected things."

I groan and bury my face in my hands as Alyssa just laughs harder. "You two are killing me."

"Let's go cous, I'm starving." Alyssa cheerfully ignores me and grabs my hand.

-----

"It's been years since we hung out like this, huh?" I realize as Alyssa parks.

"Yeah." She nods. "Four, five years maybe."

It was our favorite way to hang out when Alyssa would fly to LA to visit every once in a while. She would sleep over, sharing my unnecessarily giant bed. Chinese takeout, cheesy romcoms, and dumb gossip till the wee hours of the morning.

It's really been lonely for the last couple of years.

We get out of the car and step into the icy air. I don't know if I'll ever get used to this weather. We cross the busy street towards the restaurant. Unfortunately, the nearest Chinese restaurant doesn't deliver so we opted for pick-up.

It's uncomfortably crowded inside. People are piled up at the door, waiting for tables. It smells like a mix of shrimp and pork, and I can hear people in the kitchen shouting in several different languages I don't understand.

"C'mon Mel." Alyssa pulls me through the crowd and towards the counter at the other side of the restaurant.

As we wait in line, my gaze wanders. The décor is quite minimal. A couple of dying plants, some wall art with characters I can't read, and four old TVs attached to the ceiling in the corners. Loud and lively chatter comes from every table, blending with servers shouting from the dining room towards the kitchen.

Mom isn't a huge fan of restaurants like these, but I love them. Everything is sort of chaotic and I think that's great. You don't have to be overly worried about doing stupid things and embarrassing yourself - like I always do at fancy fine dining restaurants.

"You jerk!"

Even over all of the noise, a voice stands out and piques my attention. No one else seems to care though. I scan the room, and my eyes land on who I believe is the culprit. I see the back of a girl with long ginger hair. It's clear by her stiff posture and aggressive hand movements that she's upset. She's sitting across from a guy.

Is that-

"Is that Cole?" Alyssa whispers to me and raises a brow. "I think I know that girl too, she might be from one of the other sororities."

"You're the worst!" I manage to hear her again. My eyes widen as she picks up her cup and dumps the rest of her water onto Cole's head.

Alyssa tries to stifle a laugh as she pays for our food. The girl gets up and starts to storm out of the restaurant. Her eyes are watery and her red cheeks match her bright hair.

"Laura?" Alyssa calls as she rushes by us. "Are you ok?"

Her flaming eyes soften a bit when she spots Alyssa. "O-oh hey Alyssa," her voice quavers and she looks at us wearily. "Not really, Cole is the worst. He slept with my best friend behind my back! How could he do that to our relationship?!"

I feel my stomach lurch at her words. I suppose this means I made the right choice, avoiding him. There's this annoying little voice in my head though, insisting I give him the benefit of the doubt and that this requires further investigation.

I glance back at Cole, he's trying to dry himself with some napkins. He suddenly looks up and we make eye contact. His eyes widen and he quickly stands up. Oh god, I internally begin to panic as he starts coming over to us.

"Alright Alyssa let's go," I mutter as I scramble to grab our bags. She looks confused but obliges, giving Laura a quick goodbye as I pull her back towards the entrance.

The last thing I hear behind me is a server angrily accusing Cole of trying to dine and dash.

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I think everybody has an Alyssa in their life lol. And loud chaotic restaurants are the best, that is a fact.

Thanks for reading! :)