The screen's glow cut sharper than the streetlamp. Michael's jaw tightened, his grip on the paper cup creasing the cardboard. He read the words again, Alfred and Leila hijacked my heart. The crowd's cheers drifted faintly from across the street, salt poured into a wound already bleeding.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket and turned on Synvie, his voice low but jagged.
"Mind your own business."
Synvie stilled, coffee halfway to her lips. For a moment, silence hung heavy between them. Then she set the cup down, slow, deliberate, her hazelnut eyes narrowing but not breaking.
"Funny thing about business," she said evenly. "The moment you put your soul on a stage, it stops being yours alone."
Michael flinched, more from the truth than her tone. But his anger burned hotter.
"You don't know me. You don't know what I've lost."
Her smile was faint, sharp at the edges.
"Maybe not. But the world does and they're already writing the next act without you."
Michael turned away, staring at the blur of headlights passing on the street. The bitterness rose like bile. For the first time, his dark blue eyes looked less like storms and more like shadows sinking.
Synvie rose, brushing off her jeans, the coffee cup abandoned on the bench. Michael didn't look at her, not at first. But her voice calm, edged with something like finality...cut through him.
"You need to change, Piano Man. Or you'll keep playing the same broken song forever."
He glanced up then, sharp, ready to snap back. But she was already turning, pulling her hood over her hair as if folding herself back into the night.
"I'm leaving," she added, without drama, without hesitation.
Her footsteps faded into the hum of the street. The world swallowed her up.
Michael exhaled, jaw tight, eyes burning with unspoken rage. He reached for his coffee, ready to hurl it into the gutter, when he noticed something glinting on the bench where she'd been sitting.
Small. Cold. Ordinary. And yet not.
A key.
He lifted it slowly, turning it between his fingers. No tag. No explanation. Just the weight of it pressing against his palm.
For a moment, Michael's storm stilled. The applause across the street was still loud, Alfred and Leila's music still spilling into the night but all Michael could hear was her last line echoing in his chest.
You need to change, Piano Man.
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