Echoes of Tomorrow: Alex Vance

The room didn't feel the same after the Maroon 5 comment. It was as if the air had changed density, as if a crack had formed in the floor that only Alex could see. Finneas remained oblivious, tapping through his screen until his phone buzzed, breaking the fragile silence.

"Hey, Mom needs me for a sec," he said, standing. "Be right back."

Alex nodded absently. Finneas disappeared down the hall, his footsteps fading, and the quiet that followed wasn't peaceful—it was thick, oppressive.

Billie was across the room, curled into the corner of the couch like a cat. Her knees were drawn up, a tangle of black sleeves and pajama pants, a mechanical pencil twitching rhythmically across the page of a sketchbook. She hadn't said a word since Alex arrived. But her silence wasn't empty. It had gravity.

The hum of equipment, the faint whir of the laptop fan, the far-off noise of someone moving in the kitchen—it all blurred. Alex felt like he was underwater, suspended in a version of reality with the volume turned down. His thoughts, fractured and swollen from the morning, clawed at his brain with no way out.

His eyes landed on the piano.

It sat against the far wall, neglected and dust-flecked, the sunlight catching on its yellowing keys. A relic. But for Alex, it might as well have been a flare in the dark. He moved toward it without thinking. There was no decision. Only instinct.

The bench creaked beneath him. He let his fingers hover over the keys for a long moment, as if asking permission. The first chord was tentative, uncertain. But then something shifted. A current took over. His hands moved—not with the nervous awkwardness of a teenager, but with the precise, haunted flow of someone who'd lived through too much and hadn't told anyone about it.

The music that came out wasn't something he remembered learning. It was older than that. Sadder. A winding, minor melody unfolded, jazz-tinged and heavy with weariness. Each note carried weight—a slow bleeding of sorrow through sound. It was the kind of music written by someone who'd stared at hotel ceilings for months on end, who'd lost people and couldn't even remember when.

It wasn't teenage heartbreak. It wasn't brooding introspection. It was something colder. Sharper. Sadness with edges.

For a minute—or maybe more—he forgot about the O'Connell's living room. Forgot about the yellow walls and the Saturday light. It was just him and the piano. Or rather, them. The boy and the ghost. The two halves of him, finally speaking the same language.

The last chord hung there, trembling in the stillness. Dissonant. Unresolved.

He exhaled, slow and shaking. His fingers stayed resting on the keys, as if afraid that lifting them would break the moment. His eyes stayed closed.

And then—

"That was sad," Billie said.

Her voice was soft, unobtrusive, but it cut through him more cleanly than any scream. His eyes opened slowly. Relief stirred in his chest. She understood. She always had. He turned to look at her, ready to nod, to give her a tired smile. Ready to say, Yeah. It was.

But she spoke again before he could.

"…but it's not your kind of sad."

And just like that, the breath went out of him.

He stared at her. She wasn't looking at him. Still sketching, pencil moving in gentle arcs. As if she hadn't just sliced open his chest and looked inside.

It landed hard. He didn't need to ask what she meant.

She was right.

The sadness she knew from him—the fifteen-year-old version—was a muted thing. A soft, rainy-day ache. The kind you wrapped in headphones and long walks, the kind that lived in quiet songs and journal margins. A sadness that still had softness to it. Hope.

What he had just played? That wasn't hopeful. That was worn down. It was jaded, cracked, and tired of its own voice. It wasn't hers. And it wasn't supposed to be his.

Billie had heard it immediately. Not just the music—but the disconnect. She knew him well enough to know what didn't belong.

A chill passed through him. She had seen him. Not the boy he was pretending to be. Him.

He needed to cover it up. He needed to pull the curtains shut before she started asking questions he couldn't answer.

Alex let out a shaky laugh. "Just messing around," he said, aiming for casual. His voice betrayed him—too high, too rehearsed. "Heard it in a movie or something."

She finally looked up. Her eyes, so large and blue and usually full of a quiet, mocking spark, held something different now.

Concern.

But not the normal kind. Not the teenager to teenager, hey are you okay? kind. It was deeper. Like she was peering into the core of something she wasn't meant to see. It unsettled him more than any question she could've asked.

He stood too fast, the piano bench scraping against the floor. His heart beat faster than the moment warranted.

"I should… I should probably get going," he mumbled, already moving toward the door.

She didn't stop him. Just sat there, pencil still in hand, a slow nod the only response.

He felt her watching as he left, her gaze a quiet pressure between his shoulder blades. Not accusatory. Not judgmental. Just… aware.

As if she knew that whoever had sat down at that piano wasn't the Alex she'd grown up with. Not entirely.

And worst of all?

She was right.