All Ears

All Ears- Introduction

Isn't it interesting how people are born into this world without knowing how their life is going to play out?

They don't know what kind of family they'll have. They don't know what their career is going to be, or if they'll even have one. They don't know how successful or unsuccessful their future will be. They don't know who will be with them while they lay on their death bed, or even how long they have until they leave Earth forever.

As they live on, from birth, to teenage years, to adulthood, life seems to get more clearer, or life should get more clearer.

But for Hailey Wood, her life was already planned from the beginning.

She was to be homeschooled until she graduates high school, with only her cousins and her mom's friends' daughters as her friends. Absolutely no boys. Outside was forbidden, unless accepted by her mother. A career in the medical field is her only choice for her future. Anything other than that was determined by the consequences of what she does... like with music.

As with any other teenager, music is a safe haven for all the misfit and insecure kids. Music understands the generation's sadness and unanswered questions, as it was written from the experiences of the artist. Music, for Hailey, was the only thing she could love by choice. It allowed her to live in her own world whenever she felt trapped in the one everyone else called home.

However, this privilege, this necessity, was taken away. She always had an earphone in at least her left ear. It simply took away all the secrecy her mother had; it made her life a little less lonely. When she wakes up, an earphone goes straight to her ears. She's belting "she looks so perfect standing there" while dancing in her underwear. During her online schooling, she'd have a Green Day song playing in one ear, and a lecture in the other. Her mom would yell at her, but it would go through her right ear, and drown through the melodies coming from her left ear.

You would think music could never be taken away from somebody, but her mother had magically managed to do such a thing. And from then on, any words or sounds that flowed together would never make sense to Hailey. Music had gone from her soul passion to a string of words that was only visible, but inaudible.
She could only listen to what other people had to say, but she could never listen to herself because she was always trying to sing; always trying to find a way to understand why everything she was passionate about disappeared.

-

-

-

I frantically pulled everything out of the bag. I unzipped all the small pockets. Everything was dumped out on the floor in front of me. I groaned in frustration. "Where is it?!" Nevaeh always keeps her headphones in her bag.

"Hailey!"

I groaned for probably the fourth time. Why do you call for me now mom? I packed up the junk littered all over my floor into my cousin's overly sized purse, making sure to place it back to its original place on my desk.

"Hailey, what are you doing?" My mom said, with a stern look and crossed arms.

"I was just..." I paused, looking for the perfect excuse. "Cleaning my room like you asked me to."

She sighed, "Honey, were you looking for headphones again?"

I nodded in defeat.

"Look, I don't know what your mysterious disease is, but I'm sure headphones won't make it better."

"Maybe I'll find magical ones. It doesn't hurt to try, right?" I looked at her with hope radiating off my face.

My mom gave me a sad smile before heading back down the hall to her room.

She always does that to me. Whenever I speak of music, she walks away, but not before looking at me with those glistening eyes. Other people would see innocence and a mother's sympathy, but I see guilt; I know she did this to me. It had to be her. My whole life is controlled by her. I'm sixteen and my only friends are her friends or my cousins. It's always been like this and my mom is never going to allow it to change.

Why?

I always ask, but nobody ever answers.