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“What did Danielle have to say?”
Marie shrugged. “I wouldn’t hang out with them. They’re snobs from some private school.”
“They’re not snobby,” I said. “They’re nice.”
“They don’t talk to anyone but themselves.”
“They talk to me.”
“Yeah, well, you’re weird so go figure.”
I let out a breath. There wasn’t a point to talking with her. When she set her mind to how a person was, she pretty much kept that opinion. Still, I wondered how she managed to make friends as she seemed so negative. We were never really close but sometimes I wondered what it would have been like if we tried to get along. It wasn’t that I was mean to her. We didn’t really have a lot in common and with our parents being the way they were, instead of becoming closer, we’d grown apart. I partially blamed myself. I let it happen. When I tried to take an interest, it felt like we ended up fighting. I didn’t know what to do.
When we got back to the house, I tiptoed through the hallway toward my mother’s room. Putting my ear to the wall, I held my breath, waiting for signs of life. I needed to ask her about getting a violin. I knew how the conversation would go before I even started it, only I had a small hope the result would be she would call my dad at work and have him pick up a violin on his way back home.
The drone of the news on the television played and rustling noises came from the bed. I stepped into the open doorway, peering in.
She was perched on the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. I treaded forward, purposefully stepping in spots that creaked to get her attention.
Her head snapped around. Her blue eyes were glossy. It made me wonder if she’d been crying. “What do you want?” she asked. Her tone erased my previous assumption about her mood.
“I need to bring a violin to school,” I said quietly. “I need to go get one.”
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Since when do you play the violin?”
“One of my classes is violin lessons.”
“Shouldn’t the school provide one if they’re giving you the lessons?”
“They don’t have one for me.”
She frowned. “We can’t buy a musical instrument every time you want to piddle with something.”
“I need one for class tomorrow.”
“Did your dad approve of this?”
“He signed the paper for my schedule.” What I’d said was true, he did sign my paper. What I was implying wasn’t true. He didn’t really know about my violin lessons because Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne changed it after.
She sucked in a breath and slowly released it, scratching at a spot on her face. Her eyes focused in and out. Maybe the television was hurting her eyes. “I don’t think you should take this class. You’ll never keep up with it.”
My heart plunged. No, please. Don’t do this now. “But I’m already signed up,” I said. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be expensive. It can be something cheap from a pawn shop.”
“If we buy one for you, you’ll just quit.”
“I can’t quit,” I urged. I was losing this. I had to come up with something. “I’m already signed up. I have to go for the whole year.”
“You shouldn’t have signed up for it. You don’t know anything about music.”
“Marie has her flute,” I said, feeling terrible about using my sister for this. I always did my best to keep my sister out of the middle of any discussion with my parents, even if she didn’t do the same for me. It felt like a betrayal of trust and I didn’t want to be that type of person. Still, my argument was weak and I knew what my mother would say before she said it.
“Just go to the front office tomorrow and ask them to drop you. You don’t have any business in a music class.”
That was it. If I asked any more, she’d punish me for talking back, or worse, she’d call the school. If she did that, I’d be at the mercy of her whims. My whole schedule could get reworked if she wanted.
I swallowed and backed up to the door. It was a risk I didn’t want to take. I plodded down the hallway. I couldn’t stand to be in the house anymore. I shivered, suppressing the anger at feeling trapped. What else could I do? Tomorrow I’d have to admit to Mr. Blackbourne that my parents wouldn’t allow me to get a violin. I didn’t want to envision his steel eyes looking at me with pity or with resentment for wasting his time. The only student he took on the entire year was quitting.
I sucked in a breath and shook off the thoughts. There was nothing I could do about it. I would do what I had to do and get it over with. Maybe it was better this way. What did someone like me do to deserve any time and attention from a talented Academy professor?
I climbed the stairs to the landing. I was about to enter my room when I noticed Marie’s door was ajar. She never left it open and I edged over to it to take a peek.
Marie’s bed was unmade. The black ceiling fan was on, the window’s curtains were open. Clothes cluttered the floor, some spilling out from the closet. A diary sat haphazardly open on the floor. Papers from the day of school sat in a pile near her door. No Marie.
I quietly closed her door and backed away from it, thinking. I padded through the house. Marie wasn’t around. My mom already saw me and dismissed me so she wouldn’t likely ask for me again. My dad wouldn’t be home for hours.
I grabbed my bookbag and the cell phone and was out the door before I could second guess myself. I wasn’t going to waste a moment if I could get away.
I took a longer route through the woods behind my house, coming out around Nathan’s house and out into the street. I didn’t want to take the chance of anyone in my family paying attention and seeing me. It also gave me time to cool down from my mother’s resounding rejection.
Max, Kota’s golden retriever, padded over to me as I crossed the yard to Kota’s drive. He panted happily and nosed at my hand. I pushed my fingers through the fur on his head. He followed me into the garage and sat next to me when I used the doorbell.
Jessica, Kota’s little sister, answered the door. Her pink rimmed glasses slid down her nose a little as she looked up at me and smiled. “Hi Sang.”
“Hi Jessica. Are the boys still here?”
“Yeah,” she said. She opened the door wider for me and I slipped inside. She unhooked Max’s lead from his collar. Max raced through the house and disappeared into the living room, sniffing at the air. “They’re up in Kota’s room.”
“Thanks,” I said. I closed the door behind me. Jessica ran off back to her bedroom, Max followed behind her.
I opened the door to Kota’s room and suddenly realized I probably should have knocked. It seemed awkward to simply run up the stairs. Would he even hear me if I tried knocking?
I opted for calling from the bottom of his stairs. “Kota?” I called up. “Gabriel?”
Creaking and paper shifting noises drifted to me. Kota and Gabriel poked their heads out from over the rail barrier.
“Hey!” Gabriel said. He’d removed his dress shirt and tie. He left on a white ribbed tank shirt that he had worn underneath. While he was lean, he had some definition to his chest and arms and the look was still stunning. “You made it. How did you escape?”
I finished climbing the stairs. “My sister ran off somewhere so I thought it’d be okay to come over.”
Kota’s collared shirt and tie had been replaced by a green t-shirt. He tilted his head toward me. “How long can you stay?”
“I don’t know. If we spot her walking back, I’ll go. Or before my dad gets home.”
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Aw, come on, Kota,” Gabriel said. His slim fingers encircled my arm and he pulled me into the room. “If it were up to her parents, she’d never leave the house. If she doesn’t break out, we’d never see her.”
Kota shifted on his feet as if he was trying to decide if this was a good idea. It made me wonder if he felt guilty for the day before when I got into trouble. I searched for the words to help calm his worries,
but nothing seemed right. I didn’t want to go back so I tried my best to smile warmly at him, hoping he’d understand. He hesitated but took a step back, relenting.
I sat down at one end of Kota’s bed, dropping my book bag on the floor. Gabriel crawled onto the bed, crossing his legs and pointed to the pile of papers that he had collected in the middle. “We’ve already got homework. Can you believe it?”
“I’ve got a lot, too,” I said. “What are you doing for the English assignment?”
“I’ve already finished that,” he said. He shuffled through the papers on the bed, picking one out. “It’s more like song lyrics than a poem.”
“Can I see?”
He passed the notebook paper to me. “It’s not good.”
His poem was about a lost princess in a tower and a prince pining for her from the ground. He threw apples up to her every day hoping she would eat them and think of him. One day he hit her in the head and she fell from the tower and she died. The prince felt so bad he took her to a mountaintop where he held on to her until he froze to death in the night, binding him and her together forever in ice.
