The Sound of Your Name
June 10, 2025
The first time Elia heard her name in his voice, it didn’t sound like anyone else had ever said it.
She was shelving sheet music at the campus music hall, humming along to Debussy in her earbuds, when someone tapped her shoulder.
She turned, startled. He pulled one bud from her ear.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He had a soft British accent, dark curls, and a violin case slung over his shoulder.
“No worries,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“I think you dropped this.” He held out a page of sheet music.
“Oh. Thank you.” She took it, glancing down. “Dorian mode?”
He looked impressed. “Most people don’t recognize that.”
She smiled. “I’m a composition major.”
He extended his hand. “Julian. Violin performance.”
“Elia,” she said, shaking it.
“Elia,” he repeated. “Nice to meet you.”
Something in the way he said it made her feel like a song.
They saw each other often after that. It started with casual waves in the hall. Then coffee after rehearsals. Then late-night walks across campus, trading favorite composers and childhood embarrassments.
Julian was expressive, kind, frustratingly modest. Elia liked the way he played — careful and fierce at once.
He liked the way she listened.
“You close your eyes like you’re memorizing the air,” he told her once.
She rolled her eyes, laughing. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe. But true.”
One evening, he found her in Practice Room 6, sitting at the piano, eyes closed.
“You always play in D minor,” he said.
“It’s the saddest key.”
“I think it’s the most honest.”
She looked up at him. “You think sadness is honesty?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
Elia shifted on the bench. “You speak like a poet.”
“Maybe I just listen well.”
“To music?”
“To you.”
That time, she didn’t look away.
By December, they were inseparable. They weren’t “official,” but everyone knew.
Julian left her notes on staff paper, sometimes full scores, sometimes just: meet me on the roof @ 10.
She let him hear her unfinished compositions — the messy, vulnerable ones — which no one else ever did.
He told her once, “You write like you’re trying to find something lost.”
And she whispered, “Aren’t we all?”
It was snowing the night he told her he loved her.
They were lying on the roof of the conservatory, wrapped in a blanket, sharing her earbuds. The sky was quiet.
“Elia,” he murmured, almost to himself.
She turned her head.
“I love you.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. Then: “Say it again.”
He smiled. “I love you.”
And again, it sounded like no one else had ever said it that way.
By spring, things changed.
Julian got accepted to a summer program in Berlin. Three months. Fully funded.
She pretended to be thrilled.
“You’ll thrive there,” she said, trying to mean it.
He held her hand tighter. “You’ll visit?”
“Maybe.”
But she had her own internship. A local studio. Finally writing for something that wasn’t just for grades.
They never fought. But silence began to settle in the pauses where music used to live.
Their last night before he left, they didn’t talk much. Just sat on the floor of Practice Room 6, surrounded by scribbled pages and quiet tension.
He rested his head on her shoulder. “I don’t want to lose this.”
She stared at the worn piano keys. “Then don’t go.”
He closed his eyes. “You don’t mean that.”
And she didn’t. But she wanted to.
Julian left in May.
At first, there were video calls, long emails, care packages with postcards and scribbled melodies.
Then there were delays. Missed calls. Shorter replies. Longer silences.
By July, she stopped checking her inbox first thing every morning.
By August, the last message came:
“I think we’re writing different songs now.”
She cried at her piano for an hour and didn’t play for a week.
Years passed.
Elia graduated, moved to New York, wrote scores for indie films, short animations, small things that still felt like her.
She saw his name on programs sometimes — orchestras, solo performances.
Once, she muted the TV during a documentary just to hear his violin better.
But she never reached out.
One evening, she was asked to fill in at a recital. A guest composer dropped out, and someone had remembered her name.
She arrived early. Brought her newest piece — something small and hopeful.
She didn’t look at the program until she was backstage.
Violin Solo – Julian Wood
Her breath caught.
She peeked through the curtain.
He was there.
Slightly older. Still curled hair. Still the same quiet intensity.
He hadn’t seen her yet.
When it was her turn, she stepped onto the stage, sheet music in hand, heart pounding louder than the applause.
She sat at the piano, took a breath.
Then she played.
The piece was simple. Two minutes. But she poured into it everything she hadn’t said in years.
When she finished, she stood slowly.
Julian was standing in the wings, eyes wide.
She nodded once.
He approached, his voice like a memory.
“Elia.”
She looked at him. “Julian.”
A beat of silence.
Then he said her name again, softer. “Elia.”
It still sounded like music.
She swallowed. “You came back.”
“I think,” he said, “I never really left.”
She gave him a small smile. “I still write in D minor.”
“I still remember how it sounds.”
Another pause.
Then he asked, “Coffee?”
She nodded. “Only if you tell me what you’ve been playing all this time.”
“And if I have?”
“Then maybe we’re still writing the same song.”