At Least Pretend To Love Me

3. Tommy Theseus Watson was fucking lost

±4300 Words
Friday rolled around faster than Tommy had accounted for. He had practiced his piano piece every single day. He listened to every single tip Mr. Foolish gave him and fixed even the tiniest flaw in his playing.

This was going to be his best performance yet, Tommy just knew it.

His brothers coming to watch him just made everything better. He had continuously texted Wilbur and Techno, making sure they were going to be there, and every single time they said they would. He was sure this was going to be the best evening ever.

When he walked into school, he didn't even bother going to art class. He directly went to Mr. Foolish's classroom, greeting the man who was still setting up everything for his first lesson. Tommy ended up talking about how excited he was for his brothers to come and watch him, so they could finally see how well he had improved over the years.

He just wanted them to be proud of him.

Mr. Foolish kept smiling throughout their conversation continuously, just being happy that Tommy was -for once- talking positively about his family and that they were actually good people, even if this should be the standard.

Eventually lunch break rolled around, and Tubbo and Ranboo came by. Tommy got his lunch and couldn't stop himself from smiling at the note Puffy had put in. 'Can't wait to come watch tonight! You'll do great! -Puffy :)'. Tommy would be lying if he said that those notes weren't one of the three reasons he still came to school.

The first one being his friends and the third one being able to play piano all day without anyone saying anything about it. Tommy didn't really need any other reasons to come to school anyways, this was all he needed.

His friends.

The music.

Puffy's notes.

After lunch, Tommy practiced the piece another twenty times, somehow never growing tired of the repeating melody. Mr. Foolish had truly picked out a great piece for him. By the end of the school day, Tommy had everything down perfectly. He knew when to press the pedal and when to let go. He knew when and where he had to play louder and where to play softer. He was pretty sure he could even play it backwards.

"Are you going home for dinner?" Mr. Foolish asked as Tommy took off the headphones. Tommy could go home and be disappointed that his father didn't make dinner for him again, or he could stay at school and practice till the performance. So Tommy shook his head without much hesitation. "I can order us something? Do you like pizza?"

Tommy nodded, watching as Mr. Foolish grabbed his phone and dialed a number. "What kind do you want?" He asked, sitting down in his desk chair. Tommy tried to shrug before Mr. Foolish gave him a pointed look before Tommy finally chose a pizza.

"Pepperoni is good," Tommy said quietly, embarrassed of having his teacher buy him food, just because his family would never remember to include him in dinners. Or maybe it was on purpose? It wasn't right, Tommy knew that much. But his brothers were going to watch him tonight, so it'd be fine.