Chapter 4

The County Fair was the biggest event of the year in Harmony Creek.

The talent show was its main attraction, with a small scholarship prize for the winner.

I needed that scholarship if I wanted to go to a community college nearby and study music more seriously.

In my past life, I' d let my music fade after marrying Mark. A quiet regret I' d always carried.

This time, music felt like my only lifeline.

I signed up, planning to play my acoustic guitar and sing an original folk song.

Mom was so proud. "You show them, honey," she said, her eyes shining.

The night of the talent show, the air buzzed with excitement.

Jessica was competing too, a dance routine. Mark was there, front and center, cheering her on during her sound check.

I went backstage to get my guitar from its case.

My stomach dropped.

The strings were completely loose, hanging slack.

And my lucky pick, the one Mom gave me years ago, was gone.

My hands started to shake. This wasn't an accident.

Someone had done this deliberately.

My eyes found Mark across the crowded backstage area. He was laughing with Jessica, not looking my way.

But I knew. I just knew it was him.

He wanted Jessica to win, to have that small spotlight. He wouldn' t want me to have even a tiny chance.

Panic tightened my chest. My performance was in ten minutes.

There wasn't time to restring the whole guitar.

Another contestant, a nervous boy with an electric guitar, saw my distress.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I showed him the strings.

"Jeez, that's awful," he said. "Look, you can borrow mine if you want. It's not acoustic, and it's a bit beat up, but it plays."

It was an old, battered electric guitar, not at all suited for my folk song.

But it was something.

"Thank you," I said, my voice trembling. "Thank you so much."

My name was called.

I walked onto the stage, the unfamiliar electric guitar heavy in my hands. No pick. I'd have to fingerpick, differently than I practiced.

The crowd murmured. Mark smirked from the audience, a look of triumph on his face.

I took a deep breath.

I closed my eyes and thought of all the pain, the betrayal, the lost dreams.

Then I started to play.

The notes were a little clumsy at first on the strange guitar, but then my voice came out, raw and full of all the emotion I'd been holding in.

It wasn't the song I had planned, not exactly. The melody shifted, the words changed, flowing from a deeper, more wounded place.

The crowd went silent.

I sang about second chances, and illusions, and the ache of a love that was never real.

When I finished, there was a beat of stunned silence.

Then, applause erupted, louder than I could have imagined.

My eyes were blurry with tears, but I felt a strange sense of release.