“I lose myself in the music and tug cold, dead notes on a page into sonorous, transcendent life. And momentarily they fall back into oblivion, these notes. It's an immediacy and tragedy no writer or painter or sculptor could know; it's a magic of a kind no unicorn horn could ever come close to, and I am privileged and humbled to be a part of it.”

“I can see the smile on her face, all genuine, and I can see the concentration on her brow. She's into this performance. She's really into it. You can feel, FEEL the passion wellin up inside of her. In her every motion there's nothin but pure, unapologetic life. She's doin what she loves, she's good at it, and there's nothin sexier than that.”

Stress. Self-betrayal. Worries about where you're going in life. And a chance encounter with a fellow performer to show you that maybe it's not all not all that bad.

Pre-read by the inimitable Blue_Paladin42 & jlm123hi. I arrogantly spurned their advice on literary conventions, so if your eyes start to bleed, blame me.

Warning: Contains feels, cuddling without sex, naughty words, and more than one endash.