Listen Closely

Nick Knowles has a hard time understanding people. She's got an IQ over 200 with a memory like a tape recorder, and yet expressions and social cues have always been a mystery to her. Anger however, anger and hatred, she knows very well. Ever since she lost her eye by her mother's own hand, she's known exactly what those toxic emotions feel like. Nick is surrounded by them every day after all, and at seventeen, she'd growing tired of it. She's tired of pretending to be stupid, tired of the beatings, tired of the lies, and tired of her own inability to do anything to change things.

That's when her old friend, Lucas Tsutaya shows up. Nick hasn't seen him in five years now. Too much has changed for her to even consider being his friend again. All she needs is her friend Vicky and her violin. She doesn't need someone looking into her life and finding out her secrets.

But Lucas has a way about him that makes his voice just as beautiful as the violin she plays. Nick knows she's making a mistake, but for the first time in her life, she wonders if friendship and emotions are a mistake worth making.