After I Amazed the World the Cold Alpha Regretted

Chapter 184

The first syllables of the piano echoed softly, pulling me back to a time long past.

As my fingers traced the familiar keys, memories washed over me, vivid and haunting.

I had been ostracized by my foster parents as a child, and my only refuge was a broken piano stowed away in the dusty attic.

It was my escape, the one thing that could alleviate my loneliness when no one else was there.

On my seventh birthday, I had crept to the top of the stairs, hoping for a surprise, hoping maybe this year they would remember.

read. I saw my foster parents, arms around Alice, leading her out the door to play, laughing as they left me behind. Forgotten. Unwanted.

I had crept back to the attic with tears in my eyes and sat at the piano.

It was then that I composed my first melody.

A simple, fragile tune that whispered the only birthday wish I'd receive that day.

Happy birthday to me. That small song became my secret, a balm for the wounds I carried from my so-called family.

Later, as the years went by, my foster parents would drag me along on visits to other packs, parading me in front of strangers to show their kindness

A cruel irony, really. They would never treat me with kindness themselves, but to outsiders, they wanted to appear generous.

visit to

from the group and stumbled upon a grand piano in the hallway

fingers were drawn to it, like a moth

down and started playing the melody I

the first time I played it anywhere other than the

moment-how the wind blew softly through the open window, carrying with it the scent

afternoon sun had bathed the room in golden light, and for a brief moment, I forgot

lost, overlapped with the me

lost in the melody I had composed all those years

noticed a change

went pale, and a look of disbelief

as if he'd

only to find him staring at me with a mix of

his voice barely a whisper, but his tone was heavy, filled

I had guessed right. He had

softly, "I wrote it when I was a child, on my birthday. No one else has ever heard it. I was

back a step as if the weight of the truth

was you.... All this time,

etched with regret, and I knew what

egretted

Chapter 184