Chapter Eleven
As training at Joyce's school in Brazil neared its end, tension and anticipation filled the air. An individual competition had been announced, igniting fierce determination among the students. Everyone was laser-focused on achieving excellence - everyone, that is, except Joyce.
For Joyce, once among the brightest and most promising students, the fire had dimmed. Not because of a lack of skill or passion - but because her heart was elsewhere.
James, her love, was in France completing his music training. In the beginning, distance hadn't dulled their connection. But now, James had grown increasingly distant. He barely responded to her messages, video calls were ignored, and her calls went unanswered. His silence was louder than any words.
What hurt even more was seeing James frequently on social media - not alone, but always with Camille, a French artist he claimed was "just a co-producer." Yet, there they were, laughing, performing in clubs, or singing in studios, their chemistry undeniable. He no longer posted about Joyce. She felt invisible in his world, a ghost from a different life.
Joyce's spirit began to wither under the weight of emotional betrayal. Her focus shattered, and her dreams started slipping through her fingers.
But not everyone had turned away.
Mr. Rafael, the chief school instructor, had always been a figure of inspiration. Recently, his role in Joyce's life had evolved. He had noticed her decline - the sadness she masked behind smiles, the exhaustion in her eyes. Rather than pressuring her, he offered quiet encouragement. A kind word here. A reassuring hand on her shoulder there. Late evenings where he helped her refine her performance pieces. And slowly, without meaning to, he began to fill the emotional space James had abandoned.
Rafael's kindness wasn't pushy. It was genuine. It reminded Joyce of her worth - not just as a performer, but as a person. In his presence, she felt seen again.
Now, with the final competition approaching, Joyce stands at a crossroads - between a love that's fading and a future that still holds hope, between heartbreak and healing, between James and Rafael.
Will she let the pain hold her back, or rise above it all to claim her place and her power?
Cracks in the Spotlight
The rehearsal studio was buzzing with energy. Students moved like flames - bold, passionate, desperate to outshine each other as the final performance day approached. But Joyce stood alone in the corner, her hands trembling slightly as she held her sheet music.
She tried to focus on the melody, but her thoughts drifted.Her heart sank when she scrolled past another video posted by Camille. James was in the background, smiling, playing the piano like he hadn't a care in the world. Camille tagged him with a simple caption: "Magic when we play together."
No mention of Joyce. No trace of her in his world anymore.
Suddenly, the piano room door creaked open. Mr. Rafael stepped in quietly, holding a clipboard, but his eyes locked onto her immediately. He saw through her like glass - the forced calm, the sadness she wore like perfume.
"Joyce," he said gently. "Come with me."
Without a word, she followed him into an empty practice hall. The light filtered softly through high windows, painting golden streaks on the polished floor.
"Sit," he said, motioning to the piano bench. He handed her a folded piece of paper. "Try this piece. I composed it last night. For you."
Joyce hesitated. "For me?"
Rafael gave a quiet nod. "It's called 'Unbroken.' Because that's what you are - even if you don't feel like it."
She placed the sheet on the stand and began to play. The melody was tender, but strong - like a cry turned into courage. Her fingers found the notes with trembling grace, and for the first time in weeks, she felt something rising inside her. Not pain. Not fear. Power.
When she finished, silence filled the room.
Rafael stepped closer. "You're not alone, Joyce. Whatever's hurting you - don't let it take away what you've worked so hard for."
She met his gaze, unsure of what she saw in his eyes. Kindness, yes. But something more - something warm, steady, and grounding.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He smiled. "Channel it. All of it - the pain, the hope, the fight. Use it when you perform."
As Joyce left the room, the paper still in her hand, something in her had shifted. James may have forgotten her, but she was starting to remember herself.
Fire Before the Storm
The campus of Academia de Artes da Alma pulsed with adrenaline. Posters of the upcoming "Finale da Excelência" competition hung in every hallway, and students rehearsed like their futures depended on it - because, in truth, they did.
Winning meant more than a trophy. It meant scholarships, international contracts, global recognition. For Joyce, it had always meant pride - something to prove to the world, to James, to herself.
But now, it was different.
Now it meant survival.
Joyce had thrown herself into rehearsals with renewed intensity. Her every move was deliberate. Every note, every breath - full of raw emotion she no longer tried to hide. The piece Rafael gave her - "Unbroken" - had become her weapon, her voice, her redemption.
Her classmates began to notice the change.
"She's back," one of them whispered in the corridor.
"No... she's different," another said. "There's a fire in her now."
Yet behind the scenes, curiosity turned into whispers. Joyce and Mr. Rafael were spending long hours in the studio. Too many. Some called it favoritism. Others sensed something deeper.
Beauty, a rival student and one of the fiercest competitors, didn't hide her bitterness.
"She's got Rafael wrapped around her finger," she said one day in the cafeteria. "No wonder she looks so... confident."
Joyce overheard the comment. She said nothing. She didn't have the time, or energy, for petty games.
But even as she ignored the noise, a storm brewed quietly inside her. A part of her still checked her phone too often. Still saw James and Camille on stage in Paris, smiling like they were the stars of their own fairytale.
And yet...
When Rafael stood in front of her during rehearsals - calm, encouraging, unshaken by her mess - she felt something new. Not distraction, but focus. Not a rescue, but respect.
"You've taken the pain," Rafael said one night after rehearsal, "and turned it into art. That's what real artists do. That's how they survive."
She held his gaze for a second too long. Her heart fluttered, uncertain. Then she looked away.
The night before the competition, the academy hosted a final rehearsal in front of faculty and mentors. A dress run - no audience, no judges, but everything else was real.
Joyce stepped onto the stage in a midnight-blue dress that clung to her like water. Her hair was swept back, her eyes rimmed with quiet strength.
She sat at the piano. A hush fell.
Then, she began.
"Unbroken" poured from her fingers like a confession - part prayer, part scream. Every note echoed her journey: the silence from James, the betrayal, the loneliness, and the rising strength she hadn't known she had. The room felt still, breathless.
When the final chord faded, no one moved. Even Beauty, in the shadows, stood stunned.
Mr. Rafael, standing at the back, didn't clap. He just looked at her - not as a student, but as someone who had arrived.
Afterwards, as Joyce walked offstage, a notification lit up her phone.
James: "I miss you. Can we talk?"
She stared at it for a long time.
Then turned the phone face-down - and kept walking.
The Voice in the Echo
It had been three days since the dress rehearsal.
Three days since Joyce poured her soul into the piano, walked off stage with her head high - and ignored the message from James.
But now... he wasn't just waiting.
He was reaching.
It began the next morning. A voice note. One minute, twenty-six seconds. She let it sit unopened for hours, staring at it like it was a ghost she wasn't ready to raise.
When she finally pressed play, James's voice filled the room like a song she thought she'd forgotten.
> "Joyce... I know I don't deserve your time right now. But please... just listen. I've been silent, I know. I thought I was protecting something - my focus, my music, maybe even you. But in doing that, I lost you. Or worse, I made you feel lost. And I'm sorry."
She sat motionless, barely breathing.
> "Camille... she's nothing like what you're thinking. We worked together - that's it. I didn't know how to shut the world out and protect you at the same time. I failed. But Joyce, your love was the only thing keeping me alive out here."
She felt the crack in her chest widen, pressure building like water behind glass.
Then came the second message - not a voice note this time, but a song.
He posted it on SoundCloud, tagged her name publicly for the first time in weeks. The track title was simple: "Still Joyce."
It started soft - a slow piano rhythm, hauntingly familiar. The melody mirrored the same chords she had played at the last recital. Did he hear it online? Did someone send it to him?
Then his voice came in - low, rough, tender.
> "The silence was louder than anything I could sing / But in the stillness, it's still you I'm remembering..."
> "Still Joyce / in the dark, in the light / you're the song I couldn't write / now I'm singing, praying, hoping - that I still might."
And at the end... his voice, almost breaking:
> "I'll be returning to the UK soon... I'll be waiting there. For you. For us. For the life we dreamed about in that tiny rooftop café, remember? I still believe in it - and in you."
> "Come find me, Joyce."
Tears blurred her vision as the song faded.
She sat in the quiet for minutes afterward, phone on her lap, heart somewhere between Brazil, France, and the UK.
But nothing is simple now.
Because in the silence James had left behind... Mr. Rafael had filled something in her.
She wasn't blind to what was happening. The extra time. The gentle touch. The way he looked at her during performances. The way her heart now beat a little faster when he entered the room. It wasn't love - not yet. But it was something.
And he wasn't just anyone.
Rafael was powerful - respected across the European Dance Association, connected, influential. His voice could launch careers. His mentorship had already opened doors for her she hadn't even known existed. Being near him made her feel seen, steady, limitless.
Yet now, James had returned like a tide she thought had gone out for good. With words that wrapped around her soul like vines from the past - the kind of vines that grew out of shared dreams, laughter, sleepless nights, and whispered promises.
She couldn't unlove James. But she couldn't unfeel Rafael either.
And worse... she didn't know if she wanted to.
That night, lying in bed, Joyce stared at the ceiling while her phone buzzed with another message.
James: "Tell me you haven't forgotten what we are. I'll wait - as long as it takes."
She closed her eyes - and all she saw was Rafael's hand, steadying hers on the piano keys just days ago, whispering, "You're not alone anymore."
She was torn between two men - but more than that, between two versions of herself.
The girl who dreamed with James...
And the woman who was rising with Rafael.
The competition was only two nights away.
And with it, a decision she wasn't ready to make - one that might define not just her career... but her heart.
The Night Before
The clock on the wall blinked 11:07 PM.
The dormitory lights were dimmed, the hallway outside her door quiet except for the distant buzz of a vending machine and the hum of Brazil's late summer air pressing through the cracked window.
Joyce sat on the edge of her bed in a loose cotton tee and sweatpants, legs tucked under her, phone face down beside her. Her suitcase for tomorrow's competition sat half-packed on the floor, a mess of makeup, hairpins, fabric, and tangled nerves.
She had practiced her piece three times that evening.
Not because she needed to.
But because she couldn't stop.
Each time her fingers found the first notes of "Unbroken," the walls of her heart trembled. The song wasn't just a performance now - it had become her. The melody knew too much. It carried her silent battles, her midnight tears, the moments she screamed into her pillow because James had ghosted her, because her love had turned into an unanswered echo.
And now...
Now he had come back - not physically, but with words and music and memories wrapped in promises.
His messages kept coming all day. Soft. Vulnerable. Romantic. Like he was trying to pour an entire year's worth of silence into a few perfectly placed notes.
> "I miss your laugh."
"Remember the time we danced barefoot in the rain outside our first gig?"
"You said I was your home. I never stopped being that."
At 9:42 PM, he sent a photo.
The rooftop café in London. Their spot.
Two mugs of chai. A slice of banana cake in the middle.
His caption: "Waiting."
She closed the message and pressed her forehead to her knees.
Why now?
Why this storm of sweetness when her heart had finally stopped bleeding every time his name came up?
Why did hearing his voice in that song make her ache like it was day one again?
Why did she still love him?
A soft knock came at her door.
She wiped her face instinctively, sniffed, and stood to open it.
It was Rafael.
He looked tired but calm - like he always did. Dressed in a grey button-up rolled to the elbows, holding two steaming paper cups in his hand.
"Chamomile," he said with a small smile. "You looked like you weren't sleeping."
Joyce stared at him a moment, then stepped aside to let him in.
The room felt smaller with him there - warmer, quieter, heavier.
He handed her the tea and sat on the edge of the armchair beside her desk.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"For what?"
"For everything I look like I'm feeling."
He chuckled softly. "Then I'm sorry too. Because I see all of it. And it's a lot."
Joyce smiled sadly and took a sip of the tea. It was just right - not too hot, not too sweet.
"I heard the song," he said, eyes still on the floor. "The one James posted."
She didn't answer. Didn't need to.
He looked up. "You know I'm not going to tell you what to feel. Or who to choose. That's not my place."
She turned her face toward the open window. The sound of distant city life floated in. Music from someone's car. A dog barking. A baby crying. The world outside kept spinning, but in this room - time sat still.
"I don't even know what I feel," she said finally. "I thought I was healing. But he came back like a song you loved and forgot - and now it's everywhere."
Rafael leaned forward, elbows on knees. "There's a reason songs come back. Some of them never stopped playing. They just went quiet."
His words hit her like a whisper in a cathedral.
She looked at him then - really looked.
He wasn't trying to win her.
He wasn't playing games.
He was simply there.
Kind. Grounded. Holding space for her storm without trying to calm it.
"Rafael," she said softly, her voice breaking, "what if I love both of you in different ways?"
He didn't flinch. Didn't smile.
He just nodded, slow and steady. "Then you're human."
She swallowed hard.
"Tomorrow," he added gently, "you're going to go on that stage and tell your story. No matter who's watching, or what choice you make - your story is yours. Make it honest. That's what matters."
She nodded.
Tears fell quietly down her cheeks, not from pain this time, but release.
He stood to leave. But before he stepped out, he turned to her.
"For what it's worth, Joyce... You don't need anyone's name to be whole."
And then he left.
Alone again, she climbed into bed.
The world felt heavier than ever - but something inside her had steadied.
She grabbed her journal from the nightstand and wrote:
August 13
Tomorrow, I perform.
I will not perform as James's girl.
Not as Rafael's student.
Not as someone torn between two men.
But as someone finding herself again.
And if love is real - if either of them is real - they will find their way to the woman I am becoming.
Not the girl I used to be.
She placed the journal under her pillow, rolled over, and whispered into the dark:
"Let the music speak tomorrow."