Clair de Lune

2. Discord

Sweet melodies of piano keys were echoing softly through the house as I awoke, giving me something enjoyable to wake up to. The walls of my room were no longer bathed in darkness or lightning flashes and were now revealed to be a pale, plaster gray that just about summed up the boringness of my life. It took a good amount of coercing to pull myself from my blankets this time, and the shock of the cold floor was just as bad as the night before.

I tiptoed over to my closet, passing by my desk on the way and pausing to organize it slightly. I'd left a journal open under my lamp and a few stray pens rolled around here and there, prompting me to place them all in their various resting places within my drawers and sliding my notebook onto its shelf. I wasn't a neat freak, but I enjoyed things being orderly and easy to deal with. Luckily I didn't have a lot of things to organize, so it worked out in my favor in the end. I finally pulled myself away from the furniture and grabbed a pair of jeans from the drawer, pulling a sweater on over my head to finish it off. We wouldn't be going out in public today, not like we ever did on any given day, but it was always a reminder of how truly cut off from the rest of the town we were.

I lived in Brighton with four foster siblings: Nolan, the boy who actually cared to see if I was okay, Patrick, the overconfident cocky douchebag who thinks he's right on everything, Hailey, the chunky brown-noser who had a penchant to get on my nerves, and Jordan, the quiet, somewhat creepy and off-putting boy who was actually related to Hailey. Mrs. Walker was a woman in her sixties who had the moral view of the thirties and the decoration sense of the fifties. She was the one who'd adopted us all, her and Mr. Walker, who was sadly no longer with us. I missed him dearly, considering he felt like an actual father compared to the mother Mrs. Walker was supposed to be playing.

All of this scattered across my mind as I walked down the hall, the sound of the music like a lure to the front froom. There he was, Nolan Gray, the musical genius in the flesh as he sat behind the piano and played away. Debussy's Clair de Lune echoed in the home quietly and I found myself in love with the sound of it. I took a seat beside him on the bench, reaching up to catch a stray chocolate curl in my fingers and scoop it away from his face. His eyes were hidden behind his glasses now, being as blind as a bat, he really needed them. Nolan was the kind of boy who could wear glasses and be attractive, yet still look good without them. If you hadn't guessed by this point I was infatuated with him, and the glance he cast my direction was full of the same emotion.

"Seven more days and I'll be playing "happy birthday"," he whispered quietly, his voice barely audible over the sound of the music and our family's chattering in the background.

"I think this is the first birthday I'll be looking forward to." I smiled slightly as I leaned against his shoulder. His fingers traced the ivory keys like they were of his own design.

"I got you something this year." I saw his lips twitch upwards in a smirk. "I think you'll like it."

"Oh, I'm sure Aggie will just love it!"

I cringed as Patrick came into the room, toting his usual shitty attitude and high-and-mighty demeanor. His head pushed in between mine and Nolan's as he wrapped his arms around our shoulders, turning to look at me and give me a wink. I gagged slightly and got up, pushing him away from me out of disgust at his allusion to a lewd act.

"Come back, it was only a joke!" Patrick called, and I slammed the door to the laundry room as I disappeared to do my daily chores.

He was stockier, always interested in sports and never enough in his schoolwork. Not that we were learning top-notch material from Mrs. Walker's homeschooling course, but he could stand to earn back a few brain cells. He pretended he was the cock of the walk, but he was just a scruffy ruffian that didn't need to flaunt himself as much as he does. Patrick wasn't even a bully, he was just brash and usually carried a lot of empty threats.