Chapter 1The Song She Stole for Him

Nora and I were born rivals.

She was the effortless straight-A prodigy who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and I was the kid sitting in the back of the classroom with failing grades and perfect pitch. I used to tease her that her singing sounded like a dying lawnmower; she’d shoot back that my music theory test sheets were chicken scratch only swans could decipher. Our friends in high school called us the quintessential love-hate cliché.

When we finally crossed the line into dating three years ago, every time she picked a stupid fight or drove me crazy, my petty little revenge was demanding she sing me a love song.

Every single time, she’d cross her arms, her jaw tightening, and shut me down with an icy, flat refusal.

So I did what I always did. I took the songs I wrote for her, tucked the handwritten scores into my desk drawer, and turned the key.

Then came the week before our anniversary. Nora called me from three states away, groaning about how her department head had roped her into some tedious, compulsory group showcase for the university’s fall gala. I wanted to surprise her. I booked a red-eye flight, landed on two hours of sleep, and stood outside the campus auditorium clutching a bouquet of fresh hydrangeas for three freezing hours.

What I got wasn’t a tired, relieved girlfriend.

What I got was Nora standing under the warm bath of stage lights, singing a breathtaking, perfectly harmonized love ballad with another guy.

Her pitch wasn’t off by a single semitone. Her voice was pure and tender, and the look in her eyes was so raw, so brimming with devotion, that it felt like an accidental invasion of privacy just watching her from the dark.

As the final piano chord resolved, the host bounded onstage with a microphone, whipping the crowd into a frenzy: “Give it up for our golden duo! Twenty rehearsals in the making—how about a hug for the audience?”

Behind them, the massive LED screen flashed candid snapshots of the pair the campus forum had dubbed the "Moonlight Duo." In one shot, the guy tilted his head to press his lips against her temple. Nora was looking down, smiling the softest, most unguarded smile I had ever seen on her face.

The caption read: From summer rehearsals into the autumn glow: they finally share the stage.

A sudden, sharp clarity settled over me. It wasn’t that Nora thought music was beneath her. It wasn’t that she was tone-deaf.

She simply didn’t want to sing for me.

Fine. If her world had no room for my songs, I wasn’t going to beg for a ticket in.

…

I wheeled my carry-on down the stone steps of the auditorium, the cold night air biting my throat. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

It was a text from Nora.

Thank God that garbage performance is finally over. I was off-key the whole time, pretty sure the entire front row was holding in their laughter.

My boots stopped on the gravel path. Behind me, the muffled voice of the host was still echoing over the speakers, praising the unbelievable chemistry of the Moonlight Duo.

I stared at the screen until the pixels burned into my retinas, then typed six words.

I’m by the west entrance.

The banner above her name instantly flickered to typing… It vanished, reappeared, stopped, and started again. Not a single word came through.

Ten minutes later, the double doors pushed open. Nora hurried down the path, Tristan Hayes trailing half a step behind her.

He was wearing Nora’s oversized black wool coat over his shoulders, holding a pair of glossy commemorative laminates from the show. The card showed their silhouettes framed by a crescent moon, with a sleek script printed across the corner: Best Partners.

When Nora caught sight of me, her stride hitched.

“Ethan?”

She didn’t run over. She didn’t throw her arms around my neck the way she used to when we went weeks without seeing each other. She halted three paces away, her eyes darting involuntarily to Tristan before returning to me.

“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

I looked straight into her eyes. “If I’d told you, would I have gotten to see tonight’s grand finale?”

Her eyebrows knit together. She reached out to take the handle of my suitcase, her tone softening with that calculated, cautious restraint she reserved for difficult situations.

“Don’t start imagining things. The performance was assigned by the department committee. I couldn't get out of it.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “And the photos were just random shots the marketing crew took for promo posters. The host was just hyping up the crowd.”

Her fingers slid down the telescoping handle, brushing against the back of my hand.

It was her default olive branch. Whenever she stepped over the line as a kid—like the time she accidentally spilled ink over my first cello sonata—she’d snatch my backpack, awkwardly shove a strawberry lollipop into my palm, and mumble, Don’t be a baby, Ethie. I’ll make it up to you.

She had called me that since we were seven years old.

The knot of fury and betrayal lodged in my throat suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy.

Seeing that I hadn’t pulled my hand away, Nora’s shoulders dropped slightly. “You must be starving after that flight. Come on, I’ll take you to that hot pot spot off campus. We can get the sweet tomato broth you love.”

Tristan chose that exact second to offer a polite, harmless little smile.

“Those photos weren’t just random candids, Nora,” he said gently. “The media team made us stay forty minutes after rehearsal to reshoot them. You told the photographer your smile felt unnatural in the first take, remember? We did three setups.”

Nora whipped her head around. “Tristan.”

He pressed his lips together, lowering his eyes as if he’d just realized he had let something slip.

Nora turned back to me, the defensive edge creeping back into her voice. “Reshoots, candids—what difference does it make? It was for the program flyer. Ethan, you can’t just fly across the country unannounced to police my life. I’m allowed to have commitments outside of us.”

“Police you?” I asked quietly.

“That’s not what I meant.” She raised a hand to touch my hair, but her palm stalled in midair, hovering awkwardly before dropping back to her side.

Footsteps clattered down the concrete steps behind us. The student host ran out, holding a small velvet pouch and panting into the cold.

“Nora! Tristan! Don’t leave your brooches behind!” He held up a gleaming piece of silver. “The campus Sidechat is practically melting down waiting for you guys to post the backstage wrap-up photos.”

It was a pair of magnetic silver lapel pins designed to interlock into a full moon. One crescent was already pinned to the lapel of Nora’s coat—the coat Tristan was wearing. The other crescent rested in the host’s palm.

Silence fell over the sidewalk.

The host looked between Nora, Tristan, and me holding my luggage. His grin froze. Without another word, he shoved the pouch into Nora’s hand and beat a hasty retreat.

I pulled out my phone and opened the university’s student forum.

I didn’t even need to search. The pinned thread at the top of the campus feed was a video of their duet from twenty minutes ago.

Below it was an entire timeline stretching back to July.

Photos of Nora saving a booth for Tristan in the campus café. The two of them outside the cinema sharing a tub of popcorn. A photo taken at eleven-fifteen on an August night showing Nora walking Tristan out of the rehearsal hall, her coat draped over his slender shoulders exactly like it was right now.

I remembered those dates with nauseating accuracy.

July 16: she told me she had back-to-back student council budget meetings.

August 2: she told me it was her roommate’s birthday party.

August 24: I had called her on FaceTime, buzzing with excitement to play her the opening theme of a piece I had worked on for three months. She had pressed the heels of her hands to her ears, snapped that she had a splitting headache and couldn’t take the noise, and hung up. Less than thirty minutes later, someone had snapped her laughing under the rehearsal hall awning with Tristan.

Nora reached over and tapped my phone screen, turning the display black.

“Campus boards are full of bored undergrads writing fanfiction,” she said, her voice tight. “You’re really going to believe internet gossip over me?”

I looked at the silver crescent moon resting in her open hand.

“Let’s go eat,” I said.

She blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily I seemed to drop it.

I pulled my suitcase back toward me, turned, and headed toward the street without waiting for her.