Silent Sufferers

Cellos and Solace

Hazels POV

The big clumsy boy was sweet but obviously rich. I packed up my art supplies and dropped them in my room, washing the paint of my skin and taking of my apron before practicing my Cello. My Mom, a beautiful singer, violinist, and pianist had told me I could pick between a musician, artist, or dancer. But truly, why couldn't I be all of those things? 

I'd loved to sketch since I was a little girl. My colored pencils were my prized possession, and it escalated into oil pastels into watercolors until it was my job. To paint scenes out of life, people, to sketch my dreams and draw my hopes, who wouldn't want to be an artist?

That's when I started to play my Cello. 

It was such a beautiful instrument, and to hear the applause or see the smiles on other peoples faces that my own music brought, who wouldn't want that either? My Mother had always been the one with the voice of a nightingale, the beauty and music of no other Five. 

I wondered if the clumsy boy liked music. 

My father, my mother told me, had been a musician as well. Before he left. 

Now it was just me and my Mom, we hired a Six to help us with not just outdoor chores and heavy lifting, but things inside as well, like dinner(he made the best pasta), and other chores. He was a skinny white boy who treated me with respect and kindness, but not just because of my higher caste. I knew he'd been on his own since his sister passed, and I knew he'd almost become an eight from all the stealing and public crimes he was forced to commit to survive, but now he was with us, and he would be okay. 

Nico was an artist, too.

It wasn't fair. You were born into your hobbies, your jobs, or you were married into them. Why couldn't you choose? What was the point? 

Nico knocked on my door. "Come in," I said, and he swung it open. He plopped down beside me. "I'm sorry. I had to see you."

"Something up?"

"Do you know a boy named Will?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Solace? The doctor-in-training who comes to all my Mom's shows? The one who can whistle high enough to make glass break?" 

"That's the one," he sighs,

"I think he's insane."