Doctor-Patient Confidentiality: New Adult Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Chapter Fifty-Six

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Day 19

I pull open my locker door with way more force than it requires, and its slightly rusty metal hinges squeak loudly in response, protesting against my harsh actions. But I don't give a damn. The stupid thing can fall right off and crumble to dust for all I care. I'm far too upset to be bothered about it. In fact, I'm upset, pissed off, disappointed, irritated, annoyed, and every other fucking word in the dictionary that's synonymous with being angry.

Vito has just replaced me permanently for the rest of the semester. And she did it in front of the entire class, no less.

I think I'm still in shock, to be honest. I haven't had time to fully process any of it yet. I haven't had time to accept the fact that I'm officially taking the back seat for all the other seven performances we have left. It hasn't even been ten whole minutes since the venomous words left her thin, taut lips, and I can still hear them clearly in my head again and again and again, as if she's still speaking them to me.

"You have proven yourself unfit and incompetent to continue to carry out your position as a primary vocalist—a privilege you no longer seem to not take seriously, Miss Gallo."

My face scrunches up in a frown at the memory and the all gut-wrenching humiliation that went with it.

I'm unfit and incompetent? I don't take music seriously? How dare she?

I've always known Vito to be a fairly rigid and unforgiving woman, but I didn't realize she was this cold and merciless.

She doesn't care that the reason I haven't been at my best is because of something I don't understand and can't control.

She doesn't care that I don't have the money to figure out what it is and fix it.

She doesn't care that less than two weeks ago, my grandmother—the only person left in the world who I can call my family and who truly gives a damn about me—just had a major stress-related stroke and is still lying in a hospital bed as we speak.

She doesn't care that I've barely slept or haven't eaten a proper meal since it happened.

She doesn't care that I've become this empty, animated shell of my former self; a walking, barely talking bundle of mental, emotional, and physical chaos, or about any of the depressing events that led me here.

She doesn't care that practically every aspect of my life is crashing and crumbling around me, and I'm helpless to stop any of it.

She. Just. Doesn't. Care.

I reach inside the locker for my bag, and as soon as I do, I feel hot tears from behind my eyes rushing to the surface, their saltiness slightly stinging as they blur my vision.

I've never once felt so demoralized about music the way I do now. When everything else in my life has been shit, my music was the one thing I could count on, the one thing that would never let me down, the one thing I could find solace and peace in. And now, that's falling to shit, too.

I angrily wipe at my eyes with my sleeve, trying to compose myself before anyone else sees me, especially my classmates. I really don't want to give any of those sons of bitches something else to gloat about at my own expense today.