Hi everyone! It's me again and I'm glad to update this chapter. It's been a little while since I last updated. Spain was beautiful. News: I am seeing Ed in concert again on May 30th. I can not wait!
Another thing, I recently entered a contest to meet Taylor Swift. This is my dream. Taylor has been my role model for a long time. I've been listening to her since she dropped her first album. If you would like to help make my dream come true,click the link on my profile. You simply click the link, click vote, and done. You can vote once every 24 hours per device until April 13. Share the link around. If you vote and/or share the link, you will get a chapter dedicated to you! Thanks everyone! Enjoy!!!
My hands shook furiously as I read the words printed on the paper.
Dear Alyssa Salvatore,
This letter is in response to your audition for Juilliard School of The Arts. You auditioned with two pieces on March 1 in front of official Juilliard Judges. After careful consideration and thought, we would like to congratulate you into making it into Juilliard. All information about classes, activities, and such are disclosed in the pages that were sent along with this letter.
We would also like to congratulate you on earning the 'Beginning Regions: Violinist" Scholarship which provides money for students of Juilliard that show excellent potential and skill in the instrument they play despite not playing said instrument for more than five years. The scholarship will reward you with 90% of all tuition costs including but not limited to: textbooks, instruments, equipment for instrument, class costs, and time in studio.
If you have any questions, do not be afraid to call the admissions office at 917-885-2229 or email the admissions office at admissionsoff@juilliard.edu. We look forward to you joining the students of Juilliard!
-Juilliard, Board of Admissions.
I dropped the papers down to the floor, my hands shaking furiously as I dragged them across my cheeks. Tears were falling from my eyes as I slid down to the floor, laughing between each cry. I had not expected to get into Juilliard. People like me dream big dreams, dream things that seem so unattainable. But here was this paper that I had been waiting for for what felt like an eternity. My hard work had paid off. I started to laugh uncontrollably until the pit of my stomach felt ready to burst. Tears pooled in my eyelids, ready to overflow over my cheeks like a storm. I dragged myself off of the floor and walked over to the phone in my living room.
I sat down on the window bench overlooking the skyline of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. I could see the gleam of lights from Manhattan, shining like a million stars in the night sky, so bright compared to the inky sky. I dialled the phone number and pressed the phone to my ear, trying to control the flood of emotions threatening to break the flood gates that were my mind.
Riiinnngggg.
Riiiinnnnngggg.
Riiiiinnnnnggggggg.
“Hello,” the voice answered. His voice was soaked with fatigue as if he had just woken from a long slumber. I could hear him clear his throat and I could just imagine him- his hair disheveled, his brown eyes red and filled with the dreams that he had awoken from, his chest rising and falling from the deep breaths that came with sleep, the sheet clinging to him as he sighed deeply at the annoyance in the dark of the night.
“I got in Zayn!” I said into the line, trying not to scream. For months, Zayn had been there, waiting for this call. He had made me promise that he would be the first person I would call. I had imagined him screaming into the line or possibly standing right beside me as I read the letter for the first time. But of course, he was touring half way on the other side of the globe. He couldn’t be excited if he was spending most of his time sleeping and touring, an endless cycle playing over and over until the tour ended and he would have to go back into the studio!
But he perked up instantly at the words that I had said. I could hear the crinkle of a mattress and him drawing back the sheets to get out of bed. The fatigue in his voice slipped away like water down a drain. “You’re kidding!” he squeaked, a laugh escaping his lips. I pressed my head to the window sill, staring at the blinding lights outside. Somewhere, some of those other people that had auditioned were opening identical envelopes with very different contents, sobbing as they found out that their dreams had been shattered into shards of pain, piercing their heart. I could imagine their shaking hands as they dropped the page to the floor, a scream escaping their lips. I could imagine them picking up their instrument, a cello or maybe a flute, and throwing it against the room in a fit of frustration, watching the instrument bounce off the wall, smashing to a million pieces, just as their dreams had. I had felt that exact way-broken, bitter, angry, lost- but now, all I felt was pure bliss as I thought of everything that was to come in my life- Juilliard, learning more about music, giving Ed his memories, spending time with Zayn. I had no reason to feel bitter.
“I’m not kidding at all,” I laughed, closing my eyes and imagining myself in a huge theatre, playing the violin in my own recital, people clapping loudly as I stood up from my seat with a curtsy and concluded my performance. I could imagine the violin in my hands as people threw roses towards me, begging for an encore. I laughed quietly, shaking my head and squealing quietly.
“I wish I could congratulate you in person,” Zayn replied, sighing deeply. I could feel the conversation lull into a comfortable silence as I just smiled down at the letter, laying in my lap. “So, how was your day other than this wonderful news?”
I froze for a moment. Should I or should I not tell him about my day with Ed? We weren’t dating or anything but it felt somehow awkward to tell him that the day after I date I was out with Ed, reminiscing about our love and how special and breathtaking it had been. But Ed had a girlfriend and I was not her. I was a friend, simply giving him a piece of his mind back so that he could sleep sound at night. “I just spent my day with Ed… ya know, trying to fit the missing memories back for him.” I sighed quietly. I didn’t want to speak about Ed. I wanted to dream about the magical, wonderful things that could happen at Juilliard. Ed had dominated my mind for so long and I needed a break from it all. But another part of me felt relieved to talk about him, to be able to smile and say that yes, I had spent the day with Ed. The day had made me feel very happy, as if the clouds of gloom had been washed clean and underneath was an uncontrollable sort of happiness.
“Oh yeah! Ed told me he was spending the day with a friend, guess that was you… Well, I gotta go, bye.”
He hung up the phone and it left me wondering if I had done something wrong. Our conversations used to last hours on end, laughing at our own secret jokes. We could go on and on for hours or sit in our own silence, at peace just being able to know that someone was there. Now, he was done with our conversation in two seconds. I didn’t know if maybe it was because he was tired or because I had brought up Ed. Either way, he had put a serious damper on the happiness that had been filling my veins. I sighed, pushed the acceptance letter away, and prepared for bed.
Before I went to bed, I opened up my journal to a fresh page. The page was ivory, the color of a pearl. I pulled out my blue pen and began to write away my feelings until the page was full of ink the color of the sky.
Dear Diary,
Today I spent the day with Ed. I showed him around to the place where we first officially met, at our dinner. It felt so weird to look at the sunshine gleaming in his eyes, the way his red hair seemed to glow when the light hit it. He looked like an alien to me because I haven’t seen him in so long. He’s doing well.
I had to go through some pain today, a pain that I haven’t felt in a very long time. I had to break down walls that I’ve built up for my own emotional protection. I had to go through all those memories all over again. I told him about the concert and how when I saw him, it was as if a missing part of me had been found. We had clicked almost at first sight. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I told him how we met at the bar and he remembered what he called me- his singing partner. He had said that those words had played through his mind without a connection for so long and I was that connection.
I know this is not the last time we meet. This is the first of many meetings and I am completely terrified. I am scared that after all this, I will fall back in love with him. He is unavailable and emotionally, I am as well. Not because I am dating anyone but because I can no longer face the hardships of being in a relationship. I feel like dating is just too much work right now and my main priority has to be me and Juilliard. If I allow myself to fall in love with him, I will only be disappointed. I hope at the end of this, I can look at Ed with a warm smile on my lips as we shake hands and agree to be friends. But I feel like that is not going to happen.
I think it is way too much to expect of both of just to just forget our history. At the end of all this, I think we won’t be able to be friends. I think the story of our lost love will be too bright, not intriguing, not beautiful to be just friends. And it will be too dangerous, too worrisome, too scary to fall back in love. So I think we will go our separate paths- him as Ed Sheeran, award winning singer, best friend of Taylor Swift, guitar player, British Ginger. And I, I will go back to being a new Juilliard student, trying to pave my path in this world, listening to music no matter where I go as I try to find the soundtrack of my life, observing the brightness around me as I loom in the musty shadows, smiling at the view.
No matter where this ends up, I am glad I met Ed.
I will never regret loving him for as long as I live.
-Alyssa
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