Let's Make This Last Forever // Frerard - REWRITE IN PROGRESS

Chapter Eight

I pushed the wooden door away from me before it smashed into my little body as I followed the group of students into the room. As they all took their seats among the risers, I stood at the teacher's desk as he took attendance. I eyed the students on the risers, trying to spot anyone I knew, which was hard since it was my first day.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. His black, greasy hair and vampire-pale skin wasn't too hard to pick out from a crowd. He looked up at me and smiled, so I gave him a small wave with a smile in return. I then turned back to the teacher and mumbled a small, "Excuse me?"

The man snapped his head up and smiled. "Hello, son. How can I help you?"

I shuffled my feet as I talked, not wanting to stand there silently or awkwardly, even though that was exactly my nature. "I'm a new student."

He instantly nodded in response to my comment, then turned to his desk/piano thing and grabbed a stack of meth white papers off of a black hockey puck acting as a shelf that sat on the very edge of the farthest corner. He rifled through them, his eyes x-raying each one as if he didn't want to miss anything, then handed five packets to me.

"You're in the baritone's section," he said as I looked over the packets. They were a bunch of neatly printed sheet music songs, with our chords and underneath that, the piano's chords to go along with us. Each one had a kind of weird title, the first one being a pretty short packet with the huge, bolded words, "Don't Leave Me" at the top. "That's in the middle of the risers. Once you get there, take out the staples and place them in your binder, in that exact order."

I nodded and ran over to see the boy who I've only just met, but already liked. Right when I sat down, the teacher already spoke up. "Okay, kids. Flip to All the Small Things in your binder." A shuffling of papers was accompanied by his voice, everyone in the room simultaneously opening their binders and flipping through the blurs of white and black, except for two girls front row in the alto section engrossed in conversation. Once the flipping and tearing stopped, and the girls caught on to what we were doing, the teacher continued talking.

"Let's whip through what we got so far," he then turned his eyes - so light blue they were almost grey - on me. "You can follow along in your music, new kid." I slightly nodded in response, not really wanting to do much movement that would attract a lot of attention.

"All the small things

True care, truth brings

I'll take one lift

Your ride, best trip

Always, I know

You'll be at my show

Watching, waiting

Commiserating"

The teacher then stopped them to talk about their vocal ranges. They all sounded like a bunch of dying horses. Except for Gerard. They were a bunch of freaks while Gerard actually knew what he was doing. He knew his pitch, range, everything. And he sounded amazing. He should have gotten, like, a solo in this song.

"Now let's start with the second part," the teacher then said. He ran over to the Soprano section to teach them what they were going to sing next. Gerard took that as an opportunity to turn around and start talking to me.

"Pete told me you came from Italy." I nodded. "How come you didn't tell us at lunch? If I was from somewhere like that, I'd be bragging about it all the time."

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't talk about it, I guess."

"You said you lived here before you moved there, right?" I nodded again. "Do you remember anything about it?"

I squinted my eyes while staring down the door to the room, trying to remember the early years of my childhood. I finally spoke up when I remembered a big thing, "A death. The guy's name started with an A. I don't remember much about it, except for the fact that his son had some pipes on him, and, like, released a record, I think." It was then his turn to nod, which he did. "Wasn't there a suicide recently?"

He didn't respond at first, and kind of stared off into space, so I kept going. "Yeah, I didn't get his name. My parents wouldn't let me know anything about it because they still treat me like a baby, though. Bummer. Did you know the guy?" I glanced over at him, but his only reaction was to look down at his white binder and shrug. "Huh. I wonder how he died."

"Car accident," he said monotonously. Even through his dead tone, though, I could hear something behind his voice. I couldn't tell what, though. And before I could ask more about it, the teacher was already running over to tell us what we were going to sing.