the violin & the clarinet

3

Spring came even faster than winter.

The concert ended and I went home, went through the next day and all of winter break. Exams were over more quickly than I'd expected and I even managed to pass them all.

In early January we were back in school, back in band class. We passed around new sheet music, this time for the spring concert. I picked up my clarinet again and practiced every night I could, hoping to improve my somewhat horrible skills before March came.

I noticed Xinyan more and more every day. In the hallways between classes, in the morning when I got off the bus, sometimes across the cafeteria if she was late leaving. Each time I had to look away quickly for fear of her noticing me, each time my face felt hot and I thought about her for what seemed like hours afterwards.

Things kept going by too quickly for my liking and I never got the courage to even stand next to her, let alone talk to her. No matter how badly I wanted to and no matter how much Venti teased me I stayed rooted to the ground, too nervous and flustered to say a single word.

I took my frustrations out on the clarinet and learned to play each song as best I could, practicing over and over on the porch as the sun went down. I wrote imaginary letters to her and tore them up in my mind, wishing I could put even a 'Hello' down on paper.

"You're going to die an old maid if you keep this up," Venti told me one day, chewing on the tab from his can of Monster. "You'll keep staring at her until graduation and then she'll move away and go to college and you'll never see her again."

I sighed loudly and banged my head on the table, right in the middle of my chemistry homework. "What about you? Aren't you supposed to be worried about finding your own soulmate?"

"Oh, I'm happy to die alone, silly!" He took a loud sip of the drink and I groaned, picking up the pencil again and trying to focus on ideal gas laws instead of him.

April came, along with final preparations for our spring concert. I wrote and ripped up more and more mental letters in my head, the idea of never talking to her weighing me down like a pile of bricks. I couldn't think of a single thing to do about it. The only idea I had was to have Venti talk for me, and.. no scenario involving that would go well.

The night of the spring concert it rained. I sat in the audience with the rest of the orchestra and watched the boys' choir go onstage to start the concert, Venti winking at me from his place on the risers. He had his traditional smirk on- the I-know-something-really-cool-and-you-don't smirk.

Xinyan stepped onto the stage with her violin and my breath caught in my throat. Their song had a violin accompaniment and she had managed to get the part.

I don't remember anything Venti sang at all. I don't remember most of that night- I just remember I couldn't take my eyes off her, I couldn't hear anything but her. The second her bow touched the strings, time stopped just as it had before and nothing else was in my mind but her.

She played with so much feeling, played as if the instrument was part of her arm rather than separate. I said that every time she played, I knew, but there wasn't any word to better describe it. She played perfectly, and I couldn't take my eyes off her at all. Not for a second.

As everything was over, I still couldn't get her part out of my head. I moved slowly, almost in a daze as I changed out of the white button-down shirt and left the band room, only to find myself alone in the hallway with-

Xinyan.

She stood just in front of the door, typing something out on her phone. About to leave. Still dressed in her performance clothes. Ethereal as ever. If I was going to talk to her, it had to be now.

Summoning all my courage, I ran up and tapped her on the shoulder; she turned around and I forgot my own name.

fuck.