The Producer Who Broke Me First: Shattered Dreams: Chapter 3

The truth about us changes everything

I don't go to the coffee shop for three days.

Instead, I sit in my apartment, staring at the origami crane made from Bach, trying to reconcile the man who left me poetry with the one who destroyed my career with a single letter.

Thank you for your submission. While your voice shows potential, it lacks the unique quality we're seeking for our current roster. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.

I still have that letter. Kept it like evidence of my own inadequacy.

On the fourth day, there's a knock at my door.

Kai stands on my porch, holding a box of sheet music and wearing regret like a second skin.

"Please," he says. "Let me explain."

I should slam the door. Should protect what's left of my shattered pride.

Instead, I step aside and let him in.

He sets the box on my coffee table with reverent care.

"These are yours," he says quietly.

I open the box and my breath catches. [pages rustling]

Sheet music. Dozens of pieces, handwritten in my own careful notation. Songs I wrote in college, in the desperate months before the surgery, in the dark days after.

"How do you have these?" I write on a piece of paper.

"You left them with your demo. We don't usually keep rejected material, but..." He runs a hand through his hair. "Your songs were different. They stayed with me."

Different how? Different enough to reject but not enough to sign?

"Different enough to haunt me for two years."

He moves to my piano, touches the keys like they might bite him.

"I turned you down because you reminded me of someone I'd failed before. Another singer. Someone I pushed too hard, too fast." His voice goes rough. "She had surgery too. Vocal cord damage from overuse. I caused that."

My anger wavers, just slightly.

"When your demo came in, your voice..." He closes his eyes. "It was so pure, so unguarded. I knew I'd destroy it if I touched it. So I convinced myself you weren't ready."

But I was ready.

"No," he says, reading over my shoulder. "You weren't. And neither was I."

He pulls out a CD from the box.

"This is what you sounded like," he says, placing it in my stereo.

My own voice fills the room. [soft music beginning]

Young. Hopeful. Achingly vulnerable on the demo I thought would change my life.

I cover my face with my hands, overwhelmed by the ghost of who I used to be.

"I came to find you six months ago," Kai continues. "To apologize. To offer you a second chance. But when I got to town, I learned about the surgery."

So you decided to play games instead? Leave me mysterious notes?

"I decided to fall in love with you instead."

The words hit me like lightning.

"Every note I left you was true, Lily. The way I see you, the way your silence speaks louder than any voice—that's real."

You pitied me.

"I pitied myself," he corrects. "For being too afraid to see your talent when it mattered. For being too broken to recognize another broken person who might heal alongside me."

He kneels beside my chair, close enough to touch but not touching.

"I know you don't trust me. Know I have no right to ask for forgiveness. But I need you to know—the man who rejected your demo and the man who's been falling for your silence? They're both me. And they're both sorry."

Tears streak down my cheeks as my own voice soars from the speakers, singing about hope and heartbreak and all the things I can't say anymore.

What do you want from me? I write.

"Nothing," he whispers. "Everything. A chance to prove that second chances can sound like music too."

He stands to leave, but I catch his wrist.

Our eyes meet, and I see the same desperate hope I feel burning in my chest.

I want to forgive him. Want to believe that love can bloom from the ashes of rejection.

But when I open my mouth to try—to push past the fear and the scar tissue and the months of silence—nothing comes out.

Not even air.

The surgery wasn't supposed to take my voice forever.

But sitting here, needing words more than I've ever needed anything, I realize it has.

And no amount of pretty notes or whispered confessions can change that.

Kai sees the truth in my expression. Sees the moment hope dies.

"Lily—"

But I'm already shaking my head, already pulling away.

Because how can I build a future with the man who represents everything I've lost?

How can I trust him with my heart when I can't even trust my own voice to come back?

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