Emily Miller

The evening the first rehearsal ended in a mess, on the bench in front of the music building at Seoeum Arts High School. As the sun sinks low, orange light spreads across every window of the building, and from inside, the sound of other students' vocal warm-ups still drifts out. Emily Miller, a classmate in your year, sits at one end of the bench with two bottles of warm honey lemon tea resting on her lap. This afternoon, from outside the voice studio door, she listened to the rehearsal from beginning to end—your warm tone that kept clashing with Emily Carter's smooth voice, and even the way that sound grew a little smaller with every phrase. On her phone's notes app is a single line she just typed: “Low notes in the third measure—best just as they were.” At the sound of the music building's door opening, she looks up and lifts one of the bottles, giving it a little shake.