My stomach churned as I studied my laptop screen. I knew without words that Brody was struggling to make his art. The countless discarded canvases piled next to the trash told me that much. Maybe that was always his process. Twelve trashed paintings for one completed one. But a little voice inside me said that this was abnormal for him. I wanted to help, to ease his way, but sitting for him was one thing I simply couldn’t do.

Phoenix26: You know why I can’t.

Evergreen13: You can’t spend the rest of your life cooped up on an island. Eventually, you’re going to have to live again.

I wanted that. Not to escape Harbor—I’d grown to love my life here—but to live freely. Not to live as someone who needed to be invisible, but someone who left their mark. A person who had real friends, people who truly knew her, and would feel her loss if she simply disappeared. A musician who didn’t hide her music where no one could hear, but let it touch the ears of the people around her.

When I’d hidden away in my little refuge, I’d slowly started erasing my life, bit by bit until there was nothing to see but a forgettable woman just passing through. Everything about me had seemed too risky. The thing I loved more than anything was the most dangerous of all.

My gaze drifted to the violin case in the corner. Growing up, I’d wanted nothing more than to play for audiences across the globe. To attend Juilliard or Berklee. To join an orchestra in Dresden or Los Angeles or at the Met. But those dreams had slowly morphed into only wanting to play without fear. To share my music with people who would listen. To not have my bow snapped in two because Michael thought I was hogging our parents’ attention.

By the time of the attack, I’d stepped back from performing. People wondered if the pressure had gotten to be too much for the young violin prodigy. I didn’t share the truth with anyone. It was simply too much to endure the tantrums at home. The flashes of anger.

My parents had done their best to find a treatment center for Michael. They’d succeeded, promising that when he got the help he needed, all would go back to normal. But it was too late by then. That was the thing with Michael’s disease. From the moment he was born, it was too late. All we could do was spend the rest of our lives, running in response—my parents just weren’t fast enough.

Grief and anger warred whenever those memories snuck in. Grief at knowing how much my parents endured, trying to save their son. Anger that they didn’t seem to see that I was dying bit by bit along the way.

Phoenix26: He’s out.