My Ten Fingers for Her Childhood Love Chapter 2

My piano teacher's eyes blazed with fury. "Vicki Hayes! As Ethan’s wife, not only do you refuse to save him, but you forbid us from helping?! Look at the state Ethan is in! Doesn't your conscience ache, even a little?!"

She spared me a cold glance. "So his hands got stomped on a few times? Is there really a need for all this melodramatic wailing?" She turned to me, her voice sharp. "Ethan Blackwood, can't you be a man for once? A piano lid can't possibly crush your hand! Stop feigning pity; it only makes me look down on you."

I was so weak, so broken, I barely had the strength to speak. My lips trembled as I whispered, "No, I'm not faking. My fingers... they're broken."

Vicki couldn't hear my faint words. She knitted her brows in annoyance. "Ethan Blackwood, will you stop acting like a child? A piano lid weighs nothing! How could it possibly break your hand? Stop trying to get sympathy; it's pathetic."

My fingers were fractured, pulverized, a mangled mess, yet she called it "feigning pity."

My piano teacher stood beside her, sputtering with rage. She pointed a trembling finger at Vicki's face. "Are you dense as a brick?! Do you have any idea that piano weighs six hundred pounds, and its lid alone is over a hundred? It's even studded with jagged diamonds along the edge! And on top of that, a two-hundred-pound brute is jumping on it! If he isn't rescued right now, his fingers will be ruined forever!" Her voice cracked. "He has such incredible piano talent, a future master! Just ruined like this! How can you be so cruel?!"

Vicki paused, her expression momentarily faltering, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes as she listened to my teacher.

Just then, Leo Maxwell nearby began to cough dramatically. "I truly envy Brother Ethan, having such a caring teacher!" He wheezed, then looked at Vicki. "Vicki, don't worry about me. Just let these thugs beat me to death! Brother Ethan is a noble pianist, his hands are so precious. How could I let him suffer for me?!"

Vicki immediately turned to Leo, soothing him with tender hands, then spun back to me and my teacher, her eyes blazing with pure disgust. "Get lost, you old hag! My husband and I's business is none of your damn concern!" She scoffed. "What 'noble pianist'? He's nothing but a dog I keep! It's his damn good fortune to help Leo! If his fingers are broken, they're broken! Go home and stay there! It'll stop you from prancing around and flirting with every woman in sight!"

Each word that spilled from her lips was like a razor-sharp blade, slicing my heart into a thousand pieces. I had always deceived myself, clinging to the belief that her lingering connection with Leo was just some innocent nostalgia for her youth. At least I was the one she loved now, the one who held her. But in this agonizing moment, I finally understood: she had never loved me. Her heart belonged only to Leo. And I, in her eyes, was nothing more than a loyal, pathetic dog. The profound, all-consuming love I'd felt, for which I would have sacrificed everything, was, to her, nothing but a slobbering pug's desperate tail wag. My anger surged, a hot, bitter wave, and I coughed up a mouthful of blood.