HARMONY

Chapter 2 - Stupid Stuff

Chapter 2 - Stupid Stuff

After her mother's funeral, which truthfully Harmony had very little memory of, she had been shipped off against her will to live with her aunt Viola. Aunt Vi was her mother's younger sister. She had wanted to stay with Danny and Jerome, but they were both consumed by grief. Before Harmony could express her wishes to stay with them, they informed her they were touring with another band that needed both a lead and bass guitarist.

Harmony had been devastated. She felt like they had betrayed her mother's memory by joining another band so soon. She had thought they would stay together as a band somehow, even without her mother. They said that was a possibility for some time in the future but in the meantime, they felt they needed to keep busy to help them through the sadness and pain.

"What about me?" she had wanted to ask them, but she couldn't find her voice and before she knew it, her aunt was packing up her clothes and carting her off to the city. She hadn't just lost her mom. She had lost everyone close to her and everything familiar to her.

After that, things changed so quickly that at times Harmony felt like she was looking at her life through a kaleidoscope. Suddenly she was expected to go to school, even though her mother had home schooled her for the past three years. She had only gone to high school for the first half of grade nine and then had been on tour since then. Never mind giving her a grieving period, her aunt was expecting her to attend a brand-new school that was already in session and wanted her to somehow fit right in.

She couldn't get through an hour without crying, let alone a full school day. How did Aunt Vi expect her to go to school? Somehow Harmony completed the required placement tests and had even done well. She had done well enough to write her final exams and be done with high school all together, which was perfectly fine with Harmony. Her aunt didn't agree. She felt it would be better if Harmony attended the last half of her senior year, so she could, quote "live a normal life for a change" unquote.

It was the last thing on earth that Harmony wanted to do and this time she spoke up. All the arguing in the world though, wasn't going to change her Aunt Vi's mind once it was made up. Harmony thought the real reason her aunt wanted her in school was because she was grieving herself and she had no idea how to deal with Harmony's heartbreak on top of her own.

So, Harmony went to school and joined the other students already halfway through their senior year. News had spread and everyone quickly figured out who she was. Not that she was famous, but by then Dessert Rain had two singles on top of the music charts and with the sudden death of her mother, their album had gotten lots of extra unexpected publicity. What happened to her mother that day on their tour bus was no secret and because of that, most of the students had no idea what to say to her or how to deal with her. In the end, most just kept to their well-established cliques and left Harmony alone.

She hoped school might take her mind off her sadness, but because she and her mother had been diligent with her studies, she found herself well ahead in most classes. Instead of being a distraction, each school day dragged on forever. With the boredom her sadness only grew. The biggest problem was everything reminded her of her mother. Everything. There was rarely a day she didn't leave class in tears from some sort of memory popping up. The other students and teachers were very understanding, but there was only so much time you could spend around a sad person before it got tiresome.

For the first couple of weeks Harmony sporadically attended her classes often choosing to remain in bed rather than face another day trying to pretend she was anything close to okay. But, after the third week her aunt cracked down and insisted Harmony not miss any more school. So, she went to school, attended her classes, did her required homework, and mostly spoke to no one.