She Took My Hearing, He Took Her Side Chapter 01

She Took My Hearing, He Took Her Side Chapter 01

Eight years ago, I went deaf in my right ear at a music festival.

Sienna Langford was the reason it happened.

She was my best friend.

She was also the girl Graham Whitaker had spent his whole life protecting.

After the accident, Graham erased every trace of Sienna from his phone and swore off the piano.

He didn’t read a single one of her apology letters.

When the industry blacklisted her and she fled the country, he didn’t lift a finger to help.

Instead, Graham stayed by my side. He learned to lip-read with me. He helped me build a life around the half of my hearing I had left.

I always believed the guilt was real.

Until Sienna came back.

She was planning a piano recital and begged Graham to perform with her.

I turned her down on his behalf.

I told him, “You haven’t played in years. You owe her nothing.”

But Graham laughed.

A hollow, bitter sound. His eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“Eight years.”

“I never saw her. Never called. I missed every single birthday.”

“She spent eight years hiding on the other side of the world because of you. She was too afraid to even come home.”

“You only lost the hearing in one ear.”

“She lost me.”

The hearing aid in my hand dropped to the floor.

He didn’t even look down.

“I’m marrying you. Isn’t that enough? Why can’t you just let her go?”

“What do you need? For her to die alone out there? Would that finally make you happy?”

Half the sound in my world was already gone.

And in that moment, the other half went dead.

So he never quit the piano out of guilt.

He quit because every note reminded him of her.

That night, I signed the guest performance contract on his behalf and mailed it to Sienna’s studio.

Then I booked a one-way ticket out of the country.

I was done.

His piano, his girl, his guilty conscience. None of it was mine to carry anymore.

…

I didn’t go home after I mailed the contract.

I went to Graham’s private recording studio.

He’d proposed to me there.

After the accident, he locked the place up. Said he’d never play again.

He claimed he couldn’t stand the thought of me hearing a piano and remembering what happened.

I believed him for eight years.

The studio manager didn’t look surprised to see me.

He greeted me warmly, completely unfazed. “Mrs. Whitaker.”

My fingertips froze.

He smiled and held the door open.

“Mr. Whitaker isn’t in yet. You’re welcome to wait inside. He usually comes in on the fifteenth. Once he starts recording, he’s here all night.”

The fifteenth of every month.

The hearing aid behind my ear buzzed.

A thin crackle of static scraped through my right ear until it went numb.

I pushed open the door to the piano room at the end of the hall.

The piano was spotless.

Details of Sienna’s comeback recital were plastered across every wall. Posters, programs, setlists.

The opening number was called “Homecoming.”

I stared at the title until the letters blurred.

Graham had promised to play that piece at our wedding.

“When you’re better,” he’d told me. “I’ll play it for you.”

But I never got better.

And he never played it.

Now it belonged to Sienna.

A custom in-ear monitor lay on the table.

Next to it was a tuning log.

[Sienna’s right ear is sensitive to high frequencies. Separate adjustment required.]

I read it twice. Something between a laugh and a scream clawed at my throat.

My right ear had been dead for eight years.

My hearing aid had been spitting static for three.

I’d asked Graham if I could get a new one.

He said the wedding was eating into our savings. Asked me to tough it out a little longer.

But he knew Sienna’s right ear was sensitive.

Knew she couldn’t handle high frequencies.

Knew exactly how to calibrate her monitors so nothing hurt.

The computer next to the piano was still on.

A folder sat open on the screen.

Hundreds of recordings.

The file names told me everything.

[For Sienna’s insomnia.]

[Sienna’s birthday adagio.]

[Sienna’s comeback. Don’t be afraid.]

I clicked on one.

The first notes blasted through my earpiece, grating against my damaged right ear.

I flinched and turned down my hearing aid.

At the end of the recording, Graham’s voice came through, barely above a whisper.

“Don’t be scared. I’m right here.”

I glanced at the recording date.

It was my birthday.

That day, I’d just gotten a new hearing aid fitted. My ear was raw and swollen, and the pain kept me up all night.

I called Graham.

He said he was stuck in a meeting. Told me to just pop a painkiller and sleep it off.

So there was no meeting.

He’d been here. Recording lullabies to soothe Sienna on my birthday.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway.

Graham rushed through the door. The second he saw me, the color drained from his face.

He took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders.

His hand brushed against my hearing aid, and he froze.

Even then, some stupid part of me still thought he cared.

Then his eyes landed on the screen.

He pushed past me and shut the monitor off.

I looked at his back.

“Didn’t you say you hadn’t touched the piano in eight years?”

Graham didn’t answer right away.

“I just didn’t want you to hear it.”

I asked, “Were you protecting me from the music, or from knowing you never stopped playing for her?”

He swallowed hard. Said nothing.

“And my birthday,” I said. “You told me you were in a meeting.”

His eyes were rimmed red.

“Sienna was falling apart that night. She said she couldn’t take it anymore.”

I nodded.

“So my pain could wait.”

“But one phone call from her couldn’t.”

He stepped toward me. “Tessa, it’s not like that.”

But his phone rang.

Sienna’s voice bled through the speaker.

“Graham, the sound system at the rehearsal hall is acting up again. I can’t hear myself play.”

Graham’s hand was still on my shoulder.

His fingers tightened once.

Then he let go.

“Tessa, let me go take care of this. I’ll come back and we’ll talk.”

He grabbed the in-ear monitor.

And the sheet music for “Homecoming.”

I stood in the empty piano room.

And I understood.

He never locked away the piano.

He locked me out of his world.