Stuck In The Middle

Just A Hobby

A few days later...

Something was off...why was the house so quiet?Silence was the rarest thing I could get in this family.
Weird...

I sat on my bed with the one thing I cared about most—my guitar. My fingers hovered over the guitar strings, hesitant to make a sound. The three years I'd had this instrument, I had only ever played it once and that was a year ago. What was holding me back from doing the one thing that made me feel alive. Feel like me.

Relax, Nick. You finally have some peace and quiet.
Just...play.

I forced my fingers down onto the strings, hoping to make at least a sound. Play...play...play the dang thing, Nick!
Why was this so hard? It's like I knew how to play but I didn't know at the same time.

My bedroom door creaked open and Janus slipped in, her hair damp as if she had just gotten out of the shower. "What are you doing?"

This really wasn't my day. "Nothing," I replied, putting my guitar down beside me. "Where is everyone?"
She leaned up against the doorframe.
"Mom took Aiden toy shopping and dad...well, you know where he is." She said.
I sighed. "Business trip. As always."

She walked around my bed and picked up my guitar. "You still have this thing? It's like, four years old."
"It's three years old, thank you very much." I clarified. "And, I will never, ever get rid of it. It's too important to me."
She scoffed. "There's nothing special about a stupid guitar, Nicolas. That's your problem." She sat down on the edge of my bed. "You're always focusing on useless things, playing guitar is just a hobby."

Why did that one sentence make me feel as if I just got stabbed in the stomach with a knife...

"Your grades are already lacking behind with B's and C's. Wasting your time with a guitar isn't going to get you were I am someday." She stood from the bed and walked to the door, giving me one last glance. "You have a history test tomorrow, don't you? Study for it and by the time I get back from my piano lesson, you should have no problem telling me what the answers are." And with that, she left, closing the door behind her.

Playing guitar is just a hobby.
Wasting your time with a guitar isn't going to get you were I am someday.
Your grades are lacking behind...

Playing guitar is just a hobby.

Why couldn't I get that stupid sentence out of my head? Janus said stuff like this to me all the time, it didn't make a difference...

I got up and walked over to my desk, sitting down in my glow-in-the-dark rolling chair. I opened my textbook and picked up my pencil.
I had about thirty minutes to study before Janus came home from her piano lesson.

Yippee...