Chapter 5 — Ten Percent

Adrian listened to “Eighteen” on the side of the freeway.

He had left Cole Records the moment Maya walked onto the Grammy stage, driving too fast with no destination except the impossible idea that he could still reach me.

Then the opening guitar came through the radio.

He recognized it immediately.

It was the progression he had written during our first winter in Nashville, back when the heat in our basement apartment failed and we slept in coats.

My ruined voice followed.

“Eighteen years old, I gave you my name

You built me a stage, then sold me away…”

Adrian pulled onto the shoulder so hard that the tires struck the curb.

The song moved through our entire history without naming him once.

The empty bars where I had sung until my feet bled.

The courthouse wedding.

The records, the mansion, the years of locked doors.

The final chorus held no anger.

That was what broke him.

“I gave you the girl who believed every vow.

I’m keeping the woman who knows better now.”

When the song ended, Adrian sat with both hands gripping the steering wheel.

He called again.

My number was disconnected.

He opened iMessage. His latest texts no longer showed as delivered.

Instagram. Blocked.

Email. An automatic response from Rachel Shaw informed him that all future communication regarding Lena Hart’s intellectual property must go through counsel.

He called Maya.

She answered on the sixth attempt.

“If this is about the award, I’m busy.”

“Where is she?”

“You had ten years to ask where your wife was.”

“Don’t do this.”

Maya laughed bitterly. “You made a twenty-one-year-old stranger look like her, gave that girl her clothes, her car, and her song, and you want to tell me not to do this?”

“She’s sick.”

It wasn’t a question.

Maya went silent.

“I heard her voice,” Adrian said. “Tell me where she is.”

“I can’t.”

“You know.”

“Yes.”

“I’m still her husband.”

“That didn’t matter when she called you from the hospital.”

His fingers tightened around the phone.

“She told you?”

“She tried to tell you.”

“Maya, please.”

It was the first time she had ever heard him use that word.

An hour later, she sent him one line.

Boston Center for Voice and Cancer Care.

Adrian was on a red-eye flight before midnight.

He arrived in Boston near noon, wearing yesterday’s clothes. Rain had turned the city silver, and the hospital’s glass entrance reflected a man he barely recognized.

At reception, no one would confirm whether I was a patient.

He called Rachel.

She refused to help.

He called Maya again.

She did not answer.

So he waited.

Near dusk, he saw a nurse push a wheelchair through the doors leading to an enclosed garden.

The woman in the chair wore a brown shawl over a hospital gown. Her hair was tied loosely at the nape of her neck.

It took him several seconds to recognize me.

I had lost weight. My cheeks had hollowed, and the hands resting beneath the shawl looked frighteningly thin.

Adrian stopped beneath the covered walkway.

I turned.

For one second, shock broke through my expression.

Then my face became still.

He approached slowly.

“Lena.”

“What are you doing here?”

My voice was barely more than a rasp.

He crouched beside the wheelchair.

“What happened to you?”

I almost laughed.

“You mean besides the thing you never had time to ask about?”

His face tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I called.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t want to know.”

“I would have come.”

“You were shopping with Sophie.”

“She had a showcase.”

“And I had cancer.”

The word struck him silent.

Rain tapped against the glass roof above us.

His gaze moved to the medical bracelet on my wrist.

“What kind?”

“Laryngeal.”

Understanding unfolded slowly across his face.

The failed recording.

The coughing.

The hospital visit.

My sudden refusal to perform.

He sat back on his heels as though the ground had shifted beneath him.

“Is that why your voice—”

“Yes.”

“What did the doctors say?”

“That I may lose it.”

“No.”

The word came out instantly, absurdly, as if he could reject a diagnosis on my behalf.

He reached for my hand.

I pulled it away.

“Don’t.”

“Lena, I’m sorry.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

His eyes reddened.

“Sophie and I never slept together.”

I stared at him.

“That’s what you came here to say?”

“I need you to know.”

“You thought the worst thing you did was sleep with her?”

“I didn’t—”

“You searched for a younger version of me, dressed her in my clothes, put her in my car, and handed her the song I wrote for our anniversary.”

My breath caught. I paused until the pain eased.

“You made me watch you replace me one piece at a time. Whether you touched her is almost irrelevant.”

“I wasn’t replacing you.”

“You called her the future of your company.”

“That was marketing.”

“You called her my protégée.”

“I was trying to save the label.”

“With my reputation.”

“I built that label for us.”

“No. You built it around me, and then convinced yourself that meant you owned me.”

He looked as though I had struck him again.

“The song was one mistake.”

“No. It was a decision. The wardrobe was a decision. The press release was a decision. Using your administrator account to enter my private archive was a decision.”

His lips parted.

I saw the exact moment he understood how much evidence I possessed.

“You knew.”

“I know everything I need to know.”

“I can fix the registration.”

“You’re still talking about paperwork.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

He lowered his head.

For a long moment, the only sound was rain.

“When I first saw Sophie, she reminded me of you,” he admitted. “Before the stadiums. Before every conversation became about schedules and contracts.”

“Before I became more successful than you?”

His eyes snapped up. “That isn’t fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I missed who we were.”

“So you hired her.”

“I thought if I built something new—”

“You could feel like the man who discovered me again.”

He said nothing.

That silence was the truth I had asked for.

I pressed the call button attached to the wheelchair.

A nurse stepped into the garden.

“I’m ready to go back.”

Adrian rose. “Lena, wait.”

I looked at him.

“I don’t care whether you meant to destroy us,” I said. “You did.”

A cough hit before I could say more.

Pain tore through my throat. I bent forward, pressing a tissue to my lips.

Blood spread across it.

Adrian moved toward me, but I thrust out one arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

The nurse hurried over and pushed him back.

“We need to take her inside.”

Adrian followed until security stopped him at the doors.

From my room, I could see him speaking urgently to a doctor in the hall.

Dr. Weiss entered several minutes later.

“You had another bleeding episode.”

“I’m aware.”

“We repeated the imaging this morning. The tumor is progressing faster than we hoped.”

He pulled a chair beside my bed.

“Our best option now is aggressive treatment followed by surgery if the tumor doesn’t respond.”

“What are the odds?”

He hesitated.

“Of complete remission?”

“Yes.”

“At this stage, with voice preservation included, approximately ten percent.”

Ten percent.

A lifetime compressed into a number small enough to fit on a prescription label.

“If you remove more of the larynx?”

“The survival odds improve. But your speaking voice may be permanently altered. Singing professionally may no longer be possible.”

I looked through the window.

Adrian stood at the far end of the corridor.

For years, I had believed losing him would be the worst thing that could happen to me.

Now I understood how little that loss mattered beside losing myself.

“Schedule the treatment,” I said.

That evening, Rachel arrived from Los Angeles with a leather folder.

Adrian was still outside my room.

She handed him an envelope before entering.

“What is this?” he asked.

“My client’s petition for divorce, preliminary injunction regarding her catalog, and formal revocation of your access to Hartline Publishing.”

His face went pale.

Rachel shut the door behind her.

I signed the final page.

My hand trembled, but the signature was legible.

For the first time in ten years, my name looked like it belonged only to me.

I pushed the documents across the bedside table.

“Have him served tonight.”