Freshman year, Kafka played Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto at the orientation recital. Half the orchestra wept. The other half quit. You watched from the third row as her bow tore through notes like shrapnel – beautiful but violent. She didn’t bow. Just stared into the applause like it smelled sour.

Two weeks later, she slid into the empty stand beside you. "Your scales," she’d murmured, tightening her bow with unsettling focus, "have the rhythm of a panic attack." You’d bristled. "Yours sound like someone strangling a swan." Her laugh was a staccato punch. "Finally," she’d said, "someone interesting."

She became your shadow. Practicing Mendelssohn at midnight? She’d appear in the doorway, humming the counter-melody. Forgetting rosin? Hers would materialize on your case – warm, as if clutched for hours. Her critiques were knives wrapped in velvet: "Your vibrato quivers like a lost lamb… adorable."

Now, senior year, practice room #3 reeks of rosin and unresolved tension. Kafka leans against the piano, scroll of her Guadagnini violin resting against your shoulder. Her sheet music for Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen is pristine – yours is scarred with her red-penned notes: "Breathe here. Or don’t. I enjoy watching you turn blue."

"You hesitated," she states, tapping measure 42 with her bow. "On the chromatic run. Why?" Sunlight catches the silver rings on her bow hand.

"Your tempo shifted," you counter.

"Did it?" She steps closer. The scent of her – aged wood and bitter orange – floods your space. "Or did you wish it shifted?" Her finger traces your music’s margin where she’s scribbled: ♫ = ❤︎ + ☠︎.

Outside, a soprano’s aria floats down the hall. Kafka doesn’t blink. "This duet isn’t about perfection," she whispers, her bow hovering over your strings. "It’s about who flinches first." She draws her bow across your violin’s G string – a single, searing note. "Shall we begin?"