"What the hell, Maeve? How long are you going to hide in here?"
Ama's voice echoed off the marble floor, her heels clicking like small hammers as she walked into the studio. Her eyes roamed over the new furniture, the glowing soundboards, the gold-tipped mic stand.
I hadn't planned on seeing any old friends today, and Ama had no idea she was an ex-friend already. In my first life, she had been my sister, my confidante. But this wasn't that life anymore.
"What's this I'm hearing all over the news? I tried calling Mirabelle and she said it's true. Did you really cheat on Fred?"
Her words floated past me. My eyes weren't on her face. They were on her clothes.
The outfit. The same one I'd glimpsed on my anonymous nemesis in that shadowy livestream. The person who had stolen my music.
Was Ama my plagiarist?
Since when did Ama have such nice voice?
I had died with this unanswered question in the past and in this life, I wasn't going to. I would do anything to make sure I find out who it is.
"It doesn't matter anymore," I said quietly, picking up my phone. "We're divorced already."
"Divorced?" Ama blinked. "How is that even possible? Maeve you've been married for barely a day and you're divorced?" She yelled.
"The whole world is furious with you. The Orchard family, Mrs. Aurora, they're all livid about the scandal. You're losing your fans and your career is in shambles."
Mrs Aurora is Fred's mother, she's been like a mother to me since I was little. She's loved and cared for me like her own. In the past, all I got from her mo matter the scandal, no matter how barren Fred made me, was love.
Even till now, she still loves me so dearly.
But love wasn't my focus now. Not hers, not anyone's.
Until I unmasked the thief who kept stealing my music, this second chance at life could still end the same way.
I said nothing. I simply rose, walked to the mic stand at the center of the room, and curled my fingers around the microphone.
"Play the second track, Becky."
Becky nodded, her face pale, and tapped at her tablet. This was my evidence. I would know right now if Ama was the thief that ruined my life in the past.
The music began, soft and low, filling every corner of the studio.
I closed my eyes. The world fell away. It was just me and the song. Music was my heartbeat, it flowed through me like a river. I let it carry me.
"Empty House," I whispered. And then I sang.
My voice poured out like a confession. I went back to that night, the one where I lost everything. The night my parents died.
Shadows in the hallway,
Photographs that never aged,
A lullaby still lingers
In a frame that time erased.
I was small when silence grew,
The night they both slipped through,
And every echo of their names
Still bruises me like new.
Chorus
Empty house, no one to call,
I learned to dance with ghosts against the wall.
Mama's voice is thunder in the rain,
Daddy's eyes are burning in the flame.
I'm a child who never found her way,
But I keep singing, just to make them stay...
This was it, I didn't sing the bridge and just stopped here, then I stared at Ama as she stared at me too.