Opposites

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Cèleste

My father's voice never rose.

Martin Garcia didn't need to shout to be obeyed; it was enough for him to use that flat, surgical tone, with which he usually explained to the families of his patients the percentage of risk of a craniotomy.

The sound of silverware on porcelain plates marked the oppressive silence of the dining room.

From the high arched windows of our apartment in the eighth arrondissement, Paris appeared golden under the sunset light.

The roofs reflected the last rays of the sun, but inside that room the temperature seemed to have dropped by several degrees.

"Your results on the admission test are excellent, Céleste" my mother intervened, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin with measured and precise gestures.

Victoire Garcia never break down.

Her heart surgeon's coat was without a single fold even after ten consecutive hours spent in the operating room, and her posture at the table was the same, impeccable and cold, that she maintained during the charity galas of the French Medical Association.

"It would be an irresponsible waste, as well as an insult to your talent, to throw such an inclination to the wind to chase a simple hobby"

A hobby.

The word remained suspended in the air, heavy as a sentence.

"It's not a hobby, mom" I said, making a huge effort to keep my voice still, even if my fingers trembled uncontrollably under the edge of the table, tight until the knuckles turned white around the rigid fabric of my skirt "It's my life. It's the only thing I recognize myself in, the only thing I really know how to do"

"What you know how to do is sing a few songs on the piano" my father replied, without even looking up from his fillet, cutting his meat with precision "An excellent social skill to entertain guests during Christmas parties or to make a good impression at an aperitif. Medicine is a job, Céleste. It's social utility. It's prestige. Music is just an illusion for kids who refuse to grow up and face reality"

I shifted my gaze to my mother, I desperately searched in her clear eyes for a shred of that sensitivity that sometimes, in very rare moments of solitude, she pretended to show when it was just the two of us.

"I'm asking you for just one year" I begged, challenging the unwritten protocol of the Garcia house that forbade showing weakness or pleas "Just one year of break. Only one year at the Paris Conservatory. If after twelve months it doesn't go as I hope, if the teachers think I don't have the necessary qualities, I'll go back. I'll do exactly what you want. I will do medicine, I will do the specialization, I will do anything. I swear on my name"

My father put the cutlery down.

The metallic tinkle of the silver against the porcelain rumbled in the absolute silence of the room like a gunshot.

He slowly turned towards me, staring at me with those gray and analytical eyes that never showed the slightest shadow of uncertainty.

"Céleste, we gave you the best education that money can buy" he said, and his voice became even more terribly cold, completely devoid of anger, which made it infinitely sharper "We have protected you from the mediocrities of the world, we have guided you to excellence. This choice is not a punishment. It is the rational safeguard of your future. Do you really think this world needs yet another little girl singing her little love stories while people die of cancer in hospitals? Be serious. Look beyond your selfishness"

The worst thing, the one that crushed my chest into a thousand sharp splinters, was that they weren't trying to hurt me on purpose.

There was no malice in their attitude.

They were sincerely convinced that they were doing the right thing.

For them, erasing music out of my life was tantamount to curing me of a lethal infection called illusion.

And that's exactly why every single word hurt, penetrating deeply without finding defenses.

"In any case, the discussion has been closed for a long time" my mother added with a flat and decisive tone, flipping through the screen of a latest generation iPad with a fluid gesture of her finger resting next to her crystal glass "The registration has already been completed and confirmed. You won't go to the Sorbonne. We opted directly for the university in California, in Los Angeles. The first-year General Medicine and Biomedical Sciences program is among the first in the world, and a drastic change of environment will do you good. It will keep you away from certain conservatory companies and useless distractions"

I closed my eyes for a second.

Blood was roaring in my ears.

Los Angeles.

Nine hours of time difference.

Another continent.

On the other side of the world.

"You organized everything...without even telling me. Without asking me anything"

"We did what a responsible and sensible parent has a duty to do when a daughter shows that she does not know how to evaluate her priorities" my father concluded, taking up the cutlery with glacial nonchalance "Your intercontinental flight leaves Thursday morning at eight from Charles de Gaulle. The dormitory on campus has already been assigned to you. The suitcase is almost ready, your mother had the most suitable clothes selected"

I looked at my dish intact.

The food made me nauseous.

It wasn't a choice, it wasn't even a brutal compromise.

It was a death sentence for the person I wanted to become.

Anger went violently to my throat, a bitter and burning knot that threatened to explode in a scream, but I swallowed it by force, feeling the taste of iron in my mouth.

At home Garcia we didn't shout.

We didn't cry.

We obeyed and thanked for the direction we had.

***

My iPhone was vibrating convulsively in the inside pocket of my tailor's jacket as the taxi swed along the stuffy traffic of Los Angeles.

LAX airport had been a three-hour sensory nightmare: a maze of violent neon lights, crawing megaphone ads, the smell of kerosene, junk food and an indistinct tide of overlapping faces and unknown voices.

Now, in the worn leather back seat of the taxi, I felt suspended in a bubble.

I took out my earphones and put them in my ears, desperately looking for a shelter from the outside world.

On the phone screen I searched for an instrumental audio track that I had been working on for months —an idea of composition born during a night of pouring rain in Paris, when I was still deluding myself that my life belonged to myself.

I closed my eyes, rested the back of my neck on the stiff headrest and hinted at the words on my lips.

It was a subtle melody, an almost imperceptible whisper, an intimate frequency that no one but me and the microphone of my phone should ever hear.

"Watch me disappear inside what you want...

Trace the outline of a ghost you built from the start..."

A lonely tear slid down my cheek.

I immediately wiped it with the back of my hand, feeling a wave of fierce anger towards myself for that demonstration of weakness.

I opened my eyes and looked out of the darkened window: the giant palm trees darted against the blue sky.

Everything there was too bright, too noisy compared to the sober and elegant Parisian twilight I was used to.

If I stop singing now, I'll never start again.

The sentence rumbled in my head with force.

If I had let myself be swallowed up by the volumes of anatomy, by the hours of internship, by the overwhelming pressure of my family's expectations, the artist who lived inside me would have died of asphyxiation, slowly, day after day, until only the empty shell of a perfect doctor would remain.

The Los Angeles university campus was nothing like the composed, rigid, and historic architecture of the Sorbonne or the elite private high schools I had attended since childhood.

As the taxi stopped near the main avenue, unloading my two suitcases on the sidewalk, I was overwhelmed by an overwhelming wave of chaos, vitality and uncontrolled energy.

Hundreds of students dressed in shorts, slippers, oversized T-shirts and sweatshirts with the university logo ran through the green lawns, thunderous laughter exploded from the people sitting in the shade of the oaks, and loud music —a confused mix of hip-hop and indie rock— came from the wide-open windows of the dormitories.

I dragged my hard suitcase down the brick avenue, clearly feeling the gaze of many people on me.

I felt like an irretrievably out of tune within a too cheerful and informal symphony.

My elegant travel outfit, with a textured jacket, cigarette pants and a light Parisian coat folded on my arm, made me look like an alien who accidentally fell on a surf beach.

The dormitory room that had been assigned to me was on the third floor of an old red brick building.

I pushed the heavy wooden door and hesitated for a few seconds on the threshold, short of breath for the flights of stairs made with my suitcase.

The room was surprisingly large, dominated by high ceilings and three U-arranged beds.

Two of them were already flooded with bags, colorful clothes and personal items scattered everywhere.

A girl with a thick and unruly hair of black hedgehogs, with ice blue eyes against a beautiful dark skin, was carefully arranging a portable keyboard on a light wooden desk.

Next to her, a blonde girl with a face dotted with pretty freckles and a clearly bohemian style, was taping the poster of a contemporary art exhibition on the wall above her bed.

"Oh, hi!" said the girl with the keyboard, turning around as soon as the door hinge squeaked.

Her face opened in a contagious and disarming smile.

"You must be the third roommate! The one that was missing from the appeal. I am Audrey, and she is Dominique"

"Céleste" I said, taking a small hesitant step inside the room and letting go of the handle of my heavy suitcase.

"Our pleasure!" Dominique turned around, giving me a smile of such sincere warmth that it almost physically surprised me "You're French too, aren't you? The accent betrays you immediately, it's delicious. Where exactly are you from?"

"Paris" I replied, hinting at a tight smile, striving to maintain the usual elegant composure.

Audrey squared me with open curiosity, sliding her gaze from my tailored dress to my rigid bearing, until she noticed a fundamental detail.

"Are you here for the advanced music program or for the fine arts program? I saw that you have a hard case for sheet music tucked into the outer compartment of your suitcase"

I let out an imperceptible sigh, feeling a tightness in my heart.

"Actually...I'm here for the degree course in Medicine and Surgery. First year"

The two girls exchanged a quick look, visibly surprised.

"Medicine?" Audrey repeated, tilting her head to the side with a stunned expression "Really? I mean...sorry for the frankness, but you look like you just got out of a composition masterclass in Vienna or a high fashion show. You really don't have the face or the attitude of a future surgeon perpetually sleepless and stressed"

"I would have liked to do music" I admitted.

The words came out of my mouth before I could even filter them.

Maybe because I was nine thousand kilometers away from Paris, or maybe because in their curious eyes there was no trace of the rigidity and judgment I had been educated to expect.

"Composition and singing. It was my only real goal. But...my parents decided that medicine was the only acceptable way"

Dominique instantly softened her gaze.

She stepped towards me, stepping over a pair of sneakers to get closer.

"Wow. I'm really sorry, Céleste. It must be terrible to feel stuck in such a hard path that you didn't choose freely"

"I will survive" I replied immediately, instinctively erecting my wall of emotional defense, recomposing my posture.

But, for the first time since I got on that damn plane in Paris, the feeling of suffocation decreased slightly.

I felt less alone.

Later, when Audrey and Dominique went out to explore the campus cafeteria and attend the welcome festivals organized by the student clubs, I was left alone in the room.

I sat on the edge of the bed that had been assigned to me, a mattress a little stiff near the window overlooking the inner courtyard.

I opened the zipper of the leather bag and took out my most precious object: a black leather notebook with a worn edge.

Inside there were dozens of handwritten texts, pencil-written chords, musical ideas, broken stanzas that had not yet seen the light.

I opened it to a blank page, clutching the pen between my fingers.

A melody was spontaneously born on my lips, and I made an instinctive gesture to pin the first notes on the hand-drawn pentagram.

Then, my gaze inevitably fell on the desk top.

Above was the massive, frightening volume of General Human Anatomy I, over seven hundred pages of thick text, flanked by an envelope with my official credentials for the faculty portal.

My father's voice rumbled in my mind with the clarity of a loudspeaker: a hobby.

I slammed the leather notebook shut with a sharp blow.

I slipped it into the deepest drawer of the bedside table, carefully hiding it under a pile of sweaters.

I couldn't afford emotionally dangerous distractions.

If I had to survive that hell in which I had been catapulted, I had to do it to the best of my ability, if only so as not to give my parents an excuse to exert even more suffocating control over my life.

***

The auditorium of the medical science block was immense.

The background buzz was a dull and continuous noise: hundreds of vaulted sheets, tablet and computer screens that lit up in unison, anxious conversations about the semester program, the strictest professors and the first exams.

I sat towards the center of the steps, keeping my back straight and my knees together.

Unlike almost all the other students, who wore sports sweatshirts, discolored t-shirts and comfortable jeans, I had chosen a strictly buttoned dark silk shirt and high-waisted tailored pants.

I realized that I looked out of place, almost ridiculous in my European formality, but that clothing represented my only shield, the last defense of an identity that was about to crumble.

I was looking at an empty spot on the chair below, my mind completely detached from the surrounding reality.

I didn't care about the study program, I didn't care about histology or biochemistry.

I just wanted the day to end, for the hours to flow by as quickly as possible.

A few minutes before the official start of the lesson, I noticed that many students were taking information sheets near the main entrance.

I decided to get up to go get a course card.

I was just three steps down the staircase when someone, walking at an extremely fast pace and with his gaze completely planted on a printed sheet, completely overwhelmed me.

The impact was sharp.

I completely lost my balance, stumbling on my heels, and my leather bag slipped off my shoulder falling to the ground with a thud.

The content spread everywhere: pens, my notepad and my iPad flew on the floor.

"Hey! Can I know where you look?!" I exclaimed in a louder and sharper tone of voice than expected, immediately bending to the ground to pick up my things before they were stepped on by the crowd of passing students.

The boy immediately crouched next to me to retrieve the scattered papers.

He had a slightly wavy and disheveled brown haircut, sculpted facial features, a sharp jaw and highlighted by a veil of unkempt beard, and a pair of iridescent hazel eyes, shaded with dark green, which stared at me with a poorly concealed impatience and devoid of any apologetic intention.

He was wearing a simple crumpled black T-shirt and black worn jeans on his knees.

"Me?" he replied, and his voice was deep, rough, warm but full of a pungent cynicism "It's you who suddenly planted yourself in the middle of the main passage like a stupid exhibition trinket"

He bent his muscular arm to pick up my iPad from the floor and handed it to me.

Before giving it to me, however, his gaze quickly glanced at my tailoring clothes, my rigid and elegant case and the luxury brand printed on my bag.

An expression of subtle, unequivocal contempt crossed his eyes.

"Try to move with a little more attention, princess" he said with a hint of acid sarcasm that made my blood rise to my head "Not everyone in here has time to take contemplative walks on the first day of class"

"How dare you?" I snapped immediately, snatching the iPad from his hands, holding it to my chest and standing up, trembling with indignation "It was you who walked with your head down without looking at all where you were putting your feet! You are incredibly rude"

He got up in turn with a fluid and indolent movement, clearly overpowering me with his height.

His bearing was straight, solid, imposing, and in his hazel eyes there was an air of cold and fierce determination that instantly annoyed me to the core.

"Gap your expensive toys and sit down before class starts" he said dryly, without giving me a second look or an extra word, before turning around and climbing the steps of the staircase with large sure strides.

Arrogant.

Presumptuous, devoid of any form of class and unbearably rude.

The teacher, an elderly man with short gray hair, thick-rimmed glasses and an aura of rigid authority, clapped his hands near the microphone to recall absolute silence.

"Good morning everyone. I'm Dr. Harrison" his amplified voice filled the auditorium, instantly silencing the hundreds of conversations "Welcome to Introduction to General Medicine. Before starting the presentation of the course, I remind you of a fundamental rule: for technical needs related to group lab sessions and automated attendance tracking, the places you will occupy today in this classroom will be strictly fixed for the entire academic year. Each of you is asked to occupy exclusively the chair corresponding to the number and letter assigned on your registration card"

A widespread murmur of discontent rose from the steps.

I was forced to take out of my jacket pocket the card that had been given to me at the entrance.

I checked it: Row 12, Seat 4B.

Refusing to look around to look for that rude guy, I gathered my things and walked up the steps to reach the twelfth row.

I found the place in the upper right corner, near the wall.

I sat down.

Then, I felt an imposing shadow project on my desk.

I slowly looked up and the blood literally froze in my veins.

The rude guy with the black shirt was standing exactly in front of Seat 4A, the chair adjacent to mine.

He was staring at his card with an annoyed grimace, before slowly moving his hazel eyes on me.

"I can't believe it" he murmured in a low voice, shaking his head with bitter disbelief.

"The feeling is mutually disastrous, believe me" I replied in a low voice, clenching my teeth so hard that my jaws hurt.

He didn't add anything else.

He sat heavily on the rigid plastic chair, placing with a hasty gesture on the desk a notebook with ruined corners and a pen worn out by time.

He didn't turn to me anymore, but his physical presence next to mine was like a magnet overloaded with negative voltage.

I could feel the warmth emanating from his imposing figure.

Dr. Harrison adjusted the microphone and projected the first slide on the giant screen behind him.

"Welcome to Medicine. I warn you: the next six years will destroy your social life and brutally redefine who you really are. Only half of you will make it to the third year"

The boy next to me let out a small ironic sigh from his nose, a silent, cynical chuckle devoid of any trace of fun.

I stared at the book leaning in front of me, feeling the oppressive and almost suffocating weight of that forced proximity.

The hazel eyes of the boy next to me flashed for a very brief moment to the side, grasping my rigid profile, before returning to stare at the professor's slides with fierce concentration.

This academic year was going to be an absolute hell.