Elinor stepped into the hallway of the music building. The air was cool and clean. The chaotic sounds of piano scales and violin strings echoed from the practice rooms.

She pulled the black N95 mask off her face. She folded it in half and shoved it into her coat pocket. She took a deep breath of the filtered air. Her lungs finally relaxed.

She walked past the main bulletin board. A bright red poster hung in the center. It advertised an SAT prep course.

The red ink burned her eyes. Her chest seized up again.

Eleventh grade. A rainy Saturday morning in Manhattan.

Elinor sat at a desk inside the Princeton Review center. The room smelled like dry-erase markers and stale coffee.

The tutor handed out thick stacks of practice tests. The wooden chair next to Elinor was empty.

She pulled out her phone. Her fingers dialed Howell's number. It went straight to voicemail. The automated voice grated against her ear.

The scene in her mind shifted to the edge of the city. A rundown trailer park.

Howell stood on the metal steps of a trailer. His clothes were soaked with rain. He knocked on the thin door.

Carrie opened it. She had dark purple makeup smeared under her eye to look like a bruise. She collapsed into Howell's chest. She sobbed and said her stepdad went crazy again.

Howell wrapped his arms around her. He held her tight. The SAT test and Elinor waiting in Manhattan vanished from his brain.

Carrie pulled away. She wanted to show him how strong she was. She walked to the cheap counter and picked up a plate of chocolate chip cookies. They were from a bulk bin at a discount grocery store.

She handed him one. She lied and said she baked them for him.

Howell took three of them. He ate them fast. He did not know the cheap factory line was covered in peanut dust.

Ten minutes later, his throat swelled shut. He fell onto the dirty fabric of the trailer couch. His body convulsed.

Carrie screamed. She dropped the plate. She panicked and dialed 911.

While the paramedics loaded Howell into the ambulance, the lead EMT pulled the emergency contact card from Howell's designer wallet and immediately notified his mother.

Back in Manhattan, Elinor's phone vibrated on the desk. The caller ID showed Beatrice Hampton.

Elinor answered. Beatrice's voice was like ice. She screamed at Elinor. She demanded to know why Elinor let Howell out of her sight. He was in the emergency room again.

Elinor's brain went completely blank. She grabbed her coat and ran out of the building. She flagged down a yellow cab and threw cash at the driver.

The emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital smelled like rubbing alcohol.

Beatrice paced the hallway. She wore a pristine Chanel suit. Her high heels clicked sharply against the linoleum floor.

The doors swung open. A doctor walked out. He said Howell was stable, but the reaction was worse than the last time.

A nurse pushed Howell out on a stretcher. He looked pale and sick. Carrie walked behind the stretcher. She kept her head down like a scared animal.

Beatrice saw Carrie. Her face twisted with rage. She marched up to the stretcher.

She raised her hand and slapped Howell across the face.

The crack of her palm hitting his skin echoed down the long hallway. Beatrice screamed at him. She told him he was throwing his life away for a piece of trash.

Howell grabbed his red cheek. He turned his head violently. His eyes locked onto Elinor, who had just run up to the group.

His eyes were filled with pure hatred.

"Did you tell her?" Howell hissed. His voice was raw. "Did you track me and call my mother?"

Elinor stopped walking. Her wet trench coat dripped water onto the floor. Her feet felt glued to the tiles.

Her lips parted. She wanted to tell him she had been waiting for him all morning. She wanted to say she had no idea where he was.

But she saw the absolute disgust in his eyes. Her throat closed up. She swallowed the words.

Beatrice ordered the security guards to throw Carrie out. She turned to Elinor and told her to leave. She called the whole situation an embarrassment.

The memory faded. Elinor stood in front of the bulletin board. Her fingernails dug so hard into her palms that the skin broke.

She closed her eyes. She shook her head to clear the sick feeling from her stomach. She turned and walked toward Practice Room B at the end of the hall.

Elinor pushed open the heavy soundproof door of Practice Room B. The smell of old wood and lemon polish hit her face.

She dropped her canvas bag on the floor. She walked straight to the black Steinway grand piano in the center of the room. She grabbed the edge of the lid and shoved it open.

She did not pull out any sheet music. She sat on the leather bench. She raised her hands and slammed her fingers down on the keys.

She played Liszt's La Campanella. She played it too fast. She played it with brutal force.

The rapid notes bounced off the padded walls. The sound was violent. It matched the burning anger in her chest.

Her fingers flew across the black and white keys. The physical exertion forced another memory to the surface. The end of senior year.

A massive thunderstorm rolled over The Hampton Estate on Long Island. Thunder shook the glass windows.

Elinor walked up the grand staircase. She carried a heavy binder full of AP History notes. Her shoes sank into the thick Persian rug in the hallway.

She walked toward the study. The heavy mahogany door was cracked open.

Beatrice's voice pierced through the gap. She was screaming.

Beatrice threw a stack of thick paper transcripts right at Howell's face. The papers hit his nose and scattered across the floor.

"Your GPA is below a 3.0!" Beatrice roared. "The Ivy League is going to reject you because of that trailer trash!"

Howell's neck turned red. The veins popped out against his skin. He paced back and forth in front of the fireplace like a trapped animal.

Elinor stopped walking. She stood outside the door. She looked through the crack.

Beatrice pointed a finger at him. She ordered him to cut Carrie off immediately. She told him to focus on his upcoming engagement dinner with Elinor.

Howell stopped pacing. He heard Elinor's name. He let out a harsh, ugly laugh.

He grabbed a heavy crystal whiskey glass from the desk. He pulled his arm back and hurled it at the brick fireplace.

The glass shattered. The explosion of crystal shards sounded like a gunshot.

Howell pointed at the door. He screamed at his mother. He said Carrie meant more to him than any of the fake East Coast elites.

His eyes were wild. He yelled that Elinor was a lifeless puppet. He said he would rather die than marry a robot with no soul.

Lightning flashed outside the window. The bright white light illuminated Elinor's face in the hallway. Her skin was completely drained of color.

Her fingers lost all their strength. The heavy AP binder slipped from her arms.

It hit the Persian rug with a loud, heavy thud.

The screaming inside the study stopped instantly. Howell whipped his head around. He stared at the crack in the door.

He lunged forward and ripped the mahogany door open. The dim hallway light hit his panicked face.

He saw Elinor. She stood perfectly still. Her eyes looked at him like he was a rotting corpse.

Howell swallowed hard. His Adam's apple bobbed. He reached his hand out to grab her arm. He whispered her name.

Elinor did not step back. She just stared at his floating hand. Her eyes were filled with pure disgust.

She opened her mouth. Her voice was steady and cold.

"The engagement is over," Elinor said. "Do not ever speak to me again."

She turned around. She kept her spine completely straight. She walked down the curved staircase. She did not look back.

The thunder from the memory merged with the piano in the room. Elinor raised both hands and smashed them down on the final chord.

The sound rang in the small room. Elinor panted. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The ice returned to her eyes.

Elinor's chest heaved as her breathing slowed down. She stood up from the piano bench. She gathered her scattered Liszt sheet music and stacked the pages together.

Her fingers brushed against her collarbone. The skin was bare. For years, a heavy silver chain had rested there.

The missing weight triggered the final piece of the past. The day before high school graduation.

The alley behind a quiet coffee shop near the Northwood campus. A light rain fell from the grey sky.

Elinor held a large black umbrella. She stood perfectly still. She stared at Howell. He stood next to a green dumpster.

He looked sick. Dark circles hung under his eyes. But his jaw was set in an arrogant, defiant angle.

Deep in the shadows of the alley, Carrie hid behind a brick wall. She wore an oversized trench coat. She leaned out to watch.

Howell raised his voice over the rain. He announced that he refused to accept his family's plans. He said he would not waste his youth on Elinor.

Elinor nodded slowly. She told him she had already called her lawyers. The financial ties between their families were being severed.

Howell's face twisted. Her lack of tears infuriated him. He felt like she was looking down on him.

He grabbed the knot of his uniform tie and ripped it loose. He reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out the Clemons family heirloom. The blue sapphire pendant.

Elinor's grandmother had given it to him when they were ten years old to hold as a promise. It was worth a fortune.

Howell held the thin silver chain. He dangled the glowing blue stone directly over a rusted iron sewer grate.

In the shadows, Carrie smiled. It was a vicious, ugly smile. She nodded her head at Howell.

Howell glared at Elinor. He gritted his teeth. He told her this was exactly what he thought of their fake relationship.

He opened his fingers. The sapphire dropped.

The metal hit the iron grate with a sharp clink. It slipped through the gap. A second later, a hollow splash echoed from the dark, rotting water below.

Howell lifted his chin. He waited for her to scream. He waited for her to fall apart. Then he turned around, grabbed Carrie's hand, and walked out of the alley.

Elinor stood in the rain. She watched them leave. Her face did not change. Her heart did not beat any faster.

She shifted the umbrella to her shoulder. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. She opened a highly encrypted, discreet application-the private concierge terminal exclusively used by the Clemons family. She typed a quick message to her family's executive assistant, detailing the exact street coordinates and the nature of the lost item. She authorized a five-thousand-dollar emergency dispatch fee from her trust account. Thirty minutes later, a professional retrieval team in an unmarked black van parked in the alley. Three men in thick rubber suits used heavy iron crowbars to lift the rusted grate.

A man climbed down. Ten minutes later, he climbed out. He handed her the sapphire. It was covered in black sludge.

Elinor pulled a pair of blue latex gloves from her pocket. She took the necklace. She used a medical-grade alcohol wipe to scrub the stone until it shined.

The next morning, she locked the necklace inside a steel safety deposit box at Chase Bank. She never looked at it again.

The memory vanished. Elinor shoved her sheet music into her canvas bag. She zipped it shut.

She felt nothing but pity for him. Howell thought he destroyed her pride, but he only threw away his own dignity.

She threw the bag over her shoulder. She pushed the practice room door open. She needed to go to the Student Health Center to get a stronger prescription for her allergy pills.

She walked out of the music building. She stayed close to the brick walls, walking in the shadows to avoid the crowds.

She turned the corner near the Art History building.

Suddenly, a loud, violent scraping sound echoed from the roof directly above her head.