Bonus Content(more can be found on the Ao3)
Chapter 2 bonus content
Ralia getting the flu before a recital Age 16
My mother made me practice my violin for 3 hours daily which isn’t horrible, but it gets worst around competition time. Those 3 hours become 6 hours very quickly. If it wasn’t for my little cousins coming to stay at the house for a while. I believe I would’ve won. Unfortunately, when I was babysitting them one of them got unreasonably sick with a fever. Now, like dominos the whole house found themselves to be bedridden. I was left to take care of everyone. It wasn’t a horrible experience except now that my mom was home. She made sure every free second was spent playing my violin.
I wouldn’t even be playing this instrument if it wasn’t for some music instructor telling my mom that I was a natural, “I was meant to play the violin”. Now, that might be true but my mom is fucking crazy. She heard that and planned to put me in every competition she could get my nine-year-old self into. Fast forward seven years later with a plethora of medals. As I was babysitting my little cousin Aurora, who is five, and my cousin Jamenson, who is three. The coughing of the whole family ended up getting me sick with being overworked on top of that something was bound to happen.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth and with a headache that felt as though I was on fire. I get myself to make it to the bathroom to turn on a cold bath. It was the day of the competition, I had to be perfect if I didn’t make myself magically better my mother wouldn’t talk to me or help me with my dad. I took every medicine trying to make the urge to throw up disappear.
Sitting in the cold bath I had fallen asleep. I woke up groggy to the sound of my mother screaming and calling the ambulance. The first time I’d ever seen her worry. I just played along with it. “She’s trying to kill herself damn it! Again!”
When the gurney picked me up from the floor I started saying I’m sick, not suicidal. I arrived at the hospital telling the doctor I was sick because everyone else was in the house. I threw up a few times non-stop, and I was diagnosed with the flu. My mother still didn’t talk to me for a week but I was glad I didn't go to the music competition. I was also allowed never to play the violin again and took it.
