Chapter 119

LIAM

The lights dim a little more just as Mar steps onto the stage, and immediately, the room changes.

He doesn’t say a word. Just lifts the violin to his shoulder, settles it under his chin, and starts to play.

Mar picked up the violin out of pure boredom. There’s no dramatic backstory. Just something to do when I was off at hockey camp and he wasn’t sitting in the bleachers at my games. Julie—in one of her endless phases—had tried and failed to learn it, guilt-tripped our mom into buying the thing, then tossed it at Mar one summer like a frisbee. Said he had pretty hands. Figured he might as well give it a shot.

Funny how fate works out.

I’ve heard him play a hundred times. Still guts me every time.

The first notes are soft, just barely there—like he’s warming up, like the song’s still making its way through him. But then the bow finds its rhythm, and the room shifts. Everything slows down. Conversations trail off mid-sentence. Glasses are lower