There were some things that came easily to me.

The first is my posture. It's why Meredith spotted me from the crowd of adolescents one of the first times I took a piano class. The other kids my age could barely sit still, their feet bouncing off the floor while their hands hit the keys. Hard, soft, than hard again creating a sound unbearable to most. But at the age of eight I sat, absorbed in the melody that came with each gentle touch.

Playing was easy. Well, not easy, but it came naturally to me. I understood, as though on instinct, which groups were in charge of which movements, how to align my body and draw the audience in. To make it more then just a noise or a thirty-five minute recital, but an actual feeling. An experience. The sound from the keys drew colors, vibrations that echoed throughout the atmosphere and wove their strings tightly around me, moving my fingers for me. From the first time I played I knew my life would be intertwined with the piano. Not that I didn't like that. Being good at something felt great. It felt really great.

Making friends had been easy, too. Moving to California when I was nine years old, I had never been a loner, although piano seemed to take more time than I had. It was only a little at first, a few hours a day. But then it became something more. Longer, harder hours distancing me from school and friends.

Yes, making friends was easy. But keeping them wasn't. Not that I complained. After my mom had put videos of me on youtube at the age of nine, the rest of my world faded away. All of the sudden the whole classical world was buzzing about Evelyn Augustine, the "world's next Beethoven."

And it'd been great, I flew through competitions, recitals, rehearsals, press interviews, it didn't matter. The rest, as they say, should be history.

Except, it wasn't.

I was seventeen when I meet him.

I was seventeen and suddenly, there are some things that don't come as easily.