The Song She Stole for Him

1 Nora and I were born rivals. She was the effortless straight-A prodigy who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and I was the kid sitting in the back of the classroom with failing grades and perfect pitch. I used to tease her that her singing sounded like a dying lawnmower; she’d shoot back that my music theory test sheets were chicken scratch only swans could decipher. Our friends in high school called us the quintessential love-hate cliché. When we finally crossed the line into dating three years ago, every time she picked a stupid fight or drove me crazy, my petty little revenge was demanding she sing me a love song. Every single time, she’d cross her arms, her jaw tightening, and shut me down with an icy, flat refusal. So I did what I always did. I took the songs I wrote for her, tucked the handwritten scores into my desk drawer, and turned the key. Then came the week before our anniversary. Nora called me from three states away, groaning about how her department head had roped her into some tedious, compulsory group showcase for the university’s fall gala. I wanted to surprise her. I booked a red-eye flight, landed on two hours of sleep, and stood outside the campus auditorium clutching a bouquet of fresh hydrangeas for three freezing hours. What I got wasn’t a tired, relieved girlfriend. What I got was Nora standing under the warm bath of stage lights, singing a breathtaking, perfectly harmonized love ballad with another guy. Her pitch wasn’t off by a single semitone. Her voice was pure and tender, and the look in her eyes was so raw, so brimming with devotion, that it felt like an accidental invasion of privacy just watching her from the dark. As the final piano chord resolved, the host bounded onstage with a microphone, whipping the crowd into a frenzy: “Give it up for our golden duo! Twenty rehearsals in the making—how about a hug for the audience?” Behind them, the massive LED screen flashed candid snapshots of the pair the campus forum had dubbed the "Moonlight Duo." In one shot, the guy tilted his head to press his lips against her temple. Nora was looking down, smiling the softest, most unguarded smile I had ever seen on her face. The caption read: From summer rehearsals into the autumn glow: they finally share the stage. A sudden, sharp clarity settled over me. It wasn’t that Nora thought music was beneath her. It wasn’t that she was tone-deaf. She simply didn’t want to sing for me. Fine. If her world had no room for my songs, I wasn’t going to beg for a ticket in. … I wheeled my carry-on down the stone steps of the auditorium, the cold night air biting my throat. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. It was a text from Nora. Thank God that garbage performance is finally over. I was off-key the whole time, pretty sure the entire front row was holding in their laughter. My boots stopped on the gravel path. Behind me, the muffled voice of the host was still echoing over the speakers, praising the unbelievable chemistry of the Moonlight Duo. I stared at the screen until the pixels burned into my retinas, then typed six words. I’m by the west entrance. The banner above her name instantly flickered to typing… It vanished, reappeared, stopped, and started again. Not a single word came through. Ten minutes later, the double doors pushed open. Nora hurried down the path, Tristan Hayes trailing half a step behind her. He was wearing Nora’s oversized black wool coat over his shoulders, holding a pair of glossy commemorative laminates from the show. The card showed their silhouettes framed by a crescent moon, with a sleek script printed across the corner: Best Partners. When Nora caught sight of me, her stride hitched. “Ethan?” She didn’t run over. She didn’t throw her arms around my neck the way she used to when we went weeks without seeing each other. She halted three paces away, her eyes darting involuntarily to Tristan before returning to me. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I looked straight into her eyes. “If I’d told you, would I have gotten to see tonight’s grand finale?” Her eyebrows knit together. She reached out to take the handle of my suitcase, her tone softening with that calculated, cautious restraint she reserved for difficult situations. “Don’t start imagining things. The performance was assigned by the department committee. I couldn't get out of it.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “And the photos were just random shots the marketing crew took for promo posters. The host was just hyping up the crowd.” Her fingers slid down the telescoping handle, brushing against the back of my hand. It was her default olive branch. Whenever she stepped over the line as a kid—like the time she accidentally spilled ink over my first cello sonata—she’d snatch my backpack, awkwardly shove a strawberry lollipop into my palm, and mumble, Don’t be a baby, Ethie. I’ll make it up to you. She had called me that since we were seven years old. The knot of fury and betrayal lodged in my throat suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy. Seeing that I hadn’t pulled my hand away, Nora’s shoulders dropped slightly. “You must be starving after that flight. Come on, I’ll take you to that hot pot spot off campus. We can get the sweet tomato broth you love.” Tristan chose that exact second to offer a polite, harmless little smile. “Those photos weren’t just random candids, Nora,” he said gently. “The media team made us stay forty minutes after rehearsal to reshoot them. You told the photographer your smile felt unnatural in the first take, remember? We did three setups.” Nora whipped her head around. “Tristan.” He pressed his lips together, lowering his eyes as if he’d just realized he had let something slip. Nora turned back to me, the defensive edge creeping back into her voice. “Reshoots, candids—what difference does it make? It was for the program flyer. Ethan, you can’t just fly across the country unannounced to police my life. I’m allowed to have commitments outside of us.” “Police you?” I asked quietly. “That’s not what I meant.” She raised a hand to touch my hair, but her palm stalled in midair, hovering awkwardly before dropping back to her side. Footsteps clattered down the concrete steps behind us. The student host ran out, holding a small velvet pouch and panting into the cold. “Nora! Tristan! Don’t leave your brooches behind!” He held up a gleaming piece of silver. “The campus Sidechat is practically melting down waiting for you guys to post the backstage wrap-up photos.” It was a pair of magnetic silver lapel pins designed to interlock into a full moon. One crescent was already pinned to the lapel of Nora’s coat—the coat Tristan was wearing. The other crescent rested in the host’s palm. Silence fell over the sidewalk. The host looked between Nora, Tristan, and me holding my luggage. His grin froze. Without another word, he shoved the pouch into Nora’s hand and beat a hasty retreat. I pulled out my phone and opened the university’s student forum. I didn’t even need to search. The pinned thread at the top of the campus feed was a video of their duet from twenty minutes ago. Below it was an entire timeline stretching back to July. Photos of Nora saving a booth for Tristan in the campus café. The two of them outside the cinema sharing a tub of popcorn. A photo taken at eleven-fifteen on an August night showing Nora walking Tristan out of the rehearsal hall, her coat draped over his slender shoulders exactly like it was right now. I remembered those dates with nauseating accuracy. July 16: she told me she had back-to-back student council budget meetings. August 2: she told me it was her roommate’s birthday party. August 24: I had called her on FaceTime, buzzing with excitement to play her the opening theme of a piece I had worked on for three months. She had pressed the heels of her hands to her ears, snapped that she had a splitting headache and couldn’t take the noise, and hung up. Less than thirty minutes later, someone had snapped her laughing under the rehearsal hall awning with Tristan. Nora reached over and tapped my phone screen, turning the display black. “Campus boards are full of bored undergrads writing fanfiction,” she said, her voice tight. “You’re really going to believe internet gossip over me?” I looked at the silver crescent moon resting in her open hand. “Let’s go eat,” I said. She blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily I seemed to drop it. I pulled my suitcase back toward me, turned, and headed toward the street without waiting for her. 2 The restaurant near the avenue had only one four-top left. Once the broth began to simmer, Tristan pulled a sleek matte-black earbud case from his pocket and set it gently near the condiments. Two decals were affixed to the lid: a silver crescent moon and an evening star. “Here,” Tristan said, nudging it toward Nora. “I’m giving these back. You stayed up with me in the practice room until one in the morning, and I’ve been wearing them all day. The battery is completely dead.” Nora didn’t reach for them. “Keep them for now.” Tristan pocketed the case, but his voice stayed light and chatty. “Honestly, Ethan, she’s being way too modest. Her ear is incredible. She was just terrified during the first run-through. We went over the arrangement maybe twenty-five times, and by the end, she had every single breath mark memorized.” I stared down into the red, bubbling tomato broth, watching the dried herbs circle the rim. Last month, when I finally tracked the first rough demo of Heard, I called Nora, unable to contain the pride in my chest. I sat at my upright piano and played the chords live through the phone. Ten seconds in, the telltale click of her keyboard echoed through the speaker. She was answering emails. When I stopped and asked if it was really that uninspired, she had sighed into the receiver. Ethan, I’m an economics major. I don’t understand modern counterpoint. Do you really need me to patronize you with fake compliments? It’s exhausting. I had deleted the finished master file from my desktop that very night. It wasn't that she didn't understand. She just didn't care enough to try. She could map out twenty-five breath marks for another guy's cadence, but she couldn't spare sixty seconds of patience for my life's work. Halfway through the meal, Nora reached into her tote bag and pulled out a small gift box. “I almost forgot,” she said, offering a tight, apologetic smile. “Happy early Harvest Moon.” The box was wrapped with exquisite care, tied with a powder-blue satin ribbon—my favorite color. My chest tightened despite myself. Since our freshman year of college, we had maintained an unwritten rule: every autumn equinox, under the harvest moon, we exchanged a small gift inspired by the night sky. Last year, I gave her a hand-blown glass lunar globe; she gave me a small wooden moon pendant she had painstakingly whittled herself, its edges rough and lopsided. I untied the ribbon and lifted the lid. Inside sat a cheap ceramic travel mug bearing the official logo of her university’s fall arts gala. Tristan leaned over, glancing inside. “Oh! Isn’t that from the leftover merch box the PR team gave us after our shoot? I told you they were just taking up trunk space. I didn’t realize you grabbed one.” Nora’s expression darkened instantly. “It’s brand new. It’s never been used.” “It’s not about whether it’s been used,” I said quietly. I set the lid back on the box. Before I could pull my hands away, my phone buzzed on the table. Nora had created a temporary three-person iMessage group earlier so she could send over the hotel check-in confirmation she had booked for me. A message popped up from Tristan: How much longer is he staying? We’re supposed to tell everyone at the afterparty tonight that we’re officially dating. The notification vanished three seconds later. Tristan Hayes unsent a message. The table fell dead silent. The only sound was the rolling boil of the pot. Tristan’s knuckles turned white around his phone. “I… that was meant for my roommate. It was a stupid inside joke. I sent it to the wrong thread.” I didn’t look at him. I kept my eyes fixed entirely on Nora. “What does ‘officially dating’ mean?” Nora avoided my gaze, picking up her chopsticks and dropping a piece of tender beef into my bowl. “People have been teasing us about the whole ‘Moonlight Duo’ nonsense for weeks. He was playing along with a joke. Ethan, stop dissecting every stray sentence like you’re conducting an interrogation.” “Are you two together?” I asked. Tristan’s eyes rimmed with red, looking small and defenseless. “Ethan, I swear I never wanted to come between you two. But after rehearsing side by side for months… people talk. We can’t control what the whole department assumes.” Nora slammed her chopsticks onto the porcelain rest with a sharp clatter. “Enough!” she snapped. “It was a song! Do you really have to paint everyone around you with such foul intentions?” A couple at an adjacent booth glanced over. Noticing the eyes on us, Nora leaned forward, lowering her voice, but her tone was ice. “Since we were kids, Ethan, when have I ever not made allowances for you? You fly out here without a word, humiliate Tristan in public, and now you’re sitting here grilling me like a criminal suspect! When did you get so insecure and bitter?” I looked down at the slice of beef sitting untouched in my broth. Every single time we had fought in the past, I was the one who yielded. She would pull out my chair, remind me to put on my scarf because I caught colds easily, drop food into my plate, and I would take the offered bridge back to peace. I always folded. This time, I didn't touch it. I reached down, unclasped the thin silver chain around my left wrist, and placed it gently in the center of the table between us. We had bought it during our freshman year. She had rolled her eyes at how sentimental it was, but she had worn the matching piece on her ankle for three years. “If there’s really nothing between you two,” I said, my voice eerily calm, “then there’s no need to explain anything.” Nora stared at the silver chain, her jaw rigid. “We’re done,” I said. “Who you sing with, who you spend your nights with—it has nothing to do with me anymore.” “You think threatening to break up scares me?” She didn’t touch the bracelet; she leaned back against the vinyl booth, crossing her arms. “You have until noon tomorrow to take that back and apologize to Tristan. Do that, and we can pretend tonight never happened.” I picked up my coat, pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet to cover my half of the check, and stood up. “Ethan!” Nora called out, her voice sharpening with disbelief as I grabbed my bag. “Noon tomorrow. That’s my final offer.” I pushed through the glass doors of the restaurant into the bitter wind. “Don't hold your breath.” 3 “Ethan, wait! Please!” Tristan caught up to me on the dark sidewalk outside the restaurant, his fingers wrapping tight around my wrist. At that exact moment, his pocket flared. His phone automatically paired with the wireless earbuds in his pocket, and an audio file resumed playback over the tinny external speaker. It was a solo piano demo. Just fifteen seconds. The progression moved from a somber C-minor into an unresolved suspended fourth—a motif I would recognize if I were deaf and blind. It was my unreleased piece. Heard. I whipped around, grabbing the lapel of the coat he wore. “Where did you get that audio?” Nora caught up to us, out of breath, and immediately lunged forward to hit pause on Tristan’s screen. “I borrowed your iPad over the summer to study for my GREs,” she said, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush, as if she had finally found a technical glitch she could fix. “The project files must have auto-synced to my iCloud. I’ll go home and wipe them immediately.” She reached for my arm. “It’s just an audio leak, Ethan. Don’t take out your anger at me on Tristan.” Tristan pulled back, staring at her in bewilderment. “What do you mean, an auto-sync? You gave it to me, Nora.” Nora’s fingers froze against the glass of the phone. Tristan unlocked the device, tapping open his local files and holding the screen up between us. “You told me this was just a throwaway draft Ethan abandoned in his desk. You said it was going to rot in a drawer anyway.” His voice rose, defensive and wounded. “I’ve spent two straight months scoring arrangements over this. I’m submitting it to the National Collegiate Music Showcase under the campus spotlight track!” The file name on the screen was glowing under the streetlight: Heard – Tristan Hayes (Original Demo). I lunged to snatch the phone, but Nora stepped between us like a shield, her palms flat against my chest, pushing me back. “The piece was locked in your drawer!” she shouted. “You were never going to do anything with it! Tristan poured his entire semester into adapting it. If he pulls out now, all his hard work goes down the drain!” “That is my intellectual property,” I said, my voice shaking with a rage so absolute it made my vision blur. “Nobody is saying it isn't!” Nora pinched the bridge of her nose, her voice laden with that unbearable, dismissive condescension. “Let him finish the campus showcase first. When it’s over, I’ll make sure he adds your name as an arranger. Or better yet, I’ll write you a check right now to buy out the rights. Will that satisfy you?” I stared past her shoulder at Tristan, who had retreated another step. “Give me the master files. Right now. Every backup, every bounce, every project folder.” Tristan cowered behind her. Nora braced her feet, blocking him completely. “Ethan, can’t you be the bigger person for once in your life?” she cried out. “This showcase is his only shot at landing a spot in a professional program! It’s a departmental honor!” “And what about me?” The words tore out of my throat, raw and jagged. “Every time I wanted to play my music for you, why couldn’t you give me sixty seconds? Why was my work just noise to you?” Nora went dead quiet. The wind whipped her dark hair across her face. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, cruel, and precise. “Because Tristan is different from you.” She looked me dead in the eye. “His love for music is effortless. It’s natural. With you, Ethan, it’s always this pathetic, suffocating performance—you write these heavy, pretentious pieces just to force me into a corner and beg me to stroke your fragile ego!” Headlights from a passing sedan washed across her face, sharp and pale. A searing, dry ache spread behind my eyes. I had never asked her for an academic analysis. I never expected her to critique my counterpoint. I just loved someone, and I wanted to share the things I built with the person I loved. To her, my vulnerability was just harassment. I didn’t reach for Tristan’s phone again. I didn’t say another word. I turned on my heel, hauled my suitcase to the curb, hailed a yellow cab, and got in. The moment the hotel room door clicked shut behind me, I flipped open my laptop and logged into my private cloud repository. The folder was completely empty. My raw MIDI files, my logic sessions, my voice memos, my tracked instrument stems—gone. The cloud recycling bin had been permanently purged. I pulled up the account activity log. The last batch deletion had occurred seventy-two hours ago, at 2:15 AM, originating from a MacBook Air registered to Nora Parker. That was the night she had texted me: Sleep tight, babe. Miss you. I immediately opened a ticket with cloud customer support, pleading for an archival server restore. The automated response arrived within minutes: Files subject to a secondary permanent purge cannot be recovered. I sat in the dark for a long time, the hum of the mini-fridge the only sound in the room. Then I reached into my backpack and pulled out the physical, bound master score of Heard. Tomorrow at noon, I wasn't going to crawl back to Nora. I was going to reclaim what was mine before they ever stepped foot on that stage.