Ichika Matsumoto Pov Page

But for the first time in seventeen years, the silence after the music does not scare me.

“The violin is my partner,” I told him. It sounded poetic. It sounded romantic. But what I meant was: I am too afraid of silence to let anyone else in. ichika matsumoto pov

In the silence, I hear a sharp breath from the back of the hall. It is my mother. She is crying. I have never heard my mother cry before. It sounds like a cracked cello string. Ugly. Real. But for the first time in seventeen years,

Tonight is the audition for the National Youth Orchestra. The soloist chair. The one my mother missed when she was seventeen. I am not playing for glory. I am playing to close a loop in my mother’s timeline. She lives in the past, in the measure she failed. I am her repeat sign, her second attempt at the cadenza. It sounded romantic