She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 978

Morris's voice drifted across the room.

Helena looked up. She hadn't even noticed him set his book aside. He was watching her, his eyes locked on her notebook.

From that distance, he couldn't possibly read the music, but he had clearly decoded the frantic, repetitive rhythm of her erasing and rewriting.

"Nothing," Helena replied quickly, snapping the notebook shut. "It's just not coming together."

"Let me see it."

It wasn't a request, nor was it an overbearing command. It sounded like an offer to help.

Helena's fingers tightened over the cover. She hesitated.

Everything she had written lately felt like pure garbage. If she showed him this, would he regret ever hiring her? She wasn't even sure if the chicken scratch on the page qualified as real music anymore.

Morris spoke, his tone completely flat. "What are you so terrified of? Did you suddenly forget how to write?"

"No, I'm just stuck on a transition. I'll figure it out."

Despite her words, she slowly stood up and handed the notebook to him, fully bracing herself for a brutal critique.

Morris took it with his left hand. He opened to the smudged pages and stared at the notes in total silence for over a minute.

The only sound in the room was the soft rustle of the paper and his even breathing. Helena's anxiety spiked. She subconsciously clutched the hem of her shirt, growing so tense she was half a second away from snatching the book back.

"In the third measure, you've written a B-flat," Morris said evenly. "But the preceding measures anchor heavily in G major. That B-flat is signaling an altered chord progression. You're trying to modulate into F-sharp minor, aren't you?"

Helena froze. She met his calm, unblinking gaze and gave a stiff nod. "Yes."

She did want to shift to F-sharp minor, but she couldn't even explain to herself *why* she needed that B-flat there. Her instincts just told her it sounded right.

Morris hadn't touched a piano. He hadn't heard a single note played out loud. Yet, just by looking at her messy, fragmented scribbles, he perfectly mapped out the exact emotional landscape she was trying to build in her head.

"Your modulation is messy," Morris observed clinically. He pointed his index finger at a spot on the page. "Right here. You drop the B-flat too early, right on the third beat. If you push it back by half a measure and let the previous chord sustain for one more beat, the transition will flow naturally. It won't feel so forced."

He looked up, meeting her eyes. "Your problem isn't a lack of inspiration. Your problem is you don't trust your own instincts. You write something, you immediately decide it's wrong, and you destroy it."

"What exactly is giving you this much anxiety?" he asked, his voice low and penetrating. "If you keep suffocating your own emotions, you're going to second-guess every choice you make."

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