Assisting Victoria

Part Three

            The next day I got dressed in an outfit I hoped looked a little nicer than my normal t-shirt and jeans look. I also straightened my hair and covered up some of the imperfections on my face. I was in a very good mood for some reason and had the urge to look nice.

            When I got to school a few of my friends complimented me on how nice I looked. I smiled shyly and thanked them, for as much as I wanted to look nice, I also wasn’t used to all the positive attention.

            My friends weren’t the people I was really hoping would notice though. I suppose I knew that in the back of my head all the time, but I tried to push the thought aside for now and focus on what was happening now. I had English, and for once in the past week, I was going to be handing my assignment in on time.

            Days like these were good days. Sometimes they came around, but most of the time I lived in this kind of half existence. Ever since I started high school I’d been having a particularly rough time, which did eventually lead to depression, and unfortunately, the loss of most of my friends.

            Lauren was the only one that ever really stuck around. Maybe it was because we had been friends since the 4thgrade, I don’t know, but I thanked her for that. What I needed most of the time was someone to talk to, and if I didn’t have her, I’d have no one. Not even my parents who always seemed to be too busy to realize that they had a daughter in their house still.

            I also spent a lot of time by myself wandering the halls and sitting by myself in class. Whenever we had to partner up with people I always just sat there until our teacher made people partner up with me. Today wasn’t going to be like that though. Today I was smiling and giddy with thoughts of yesterday still running very clearly through my mind.

            I tuned out Mr. Nelson’s talking as I sat daydreaming about what could have happened if I were to somehow magically have my dreams come true. We were in Tori’s office again, right where we left off before she turned around and walked out. Only being inches apart, I breathed in the scent of pearberry and looked into her pretty brown eyes that melted my heart. I could feel my heart beating faster as we stood there and I almost couldn’t breathe.

            Without hesitating, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. She kissed me back and brought her hands up around my neck so she could pull me closer. I didn’t want to moment to end. It was the most amazing feeling ever and for a while, it felt as though it were actually happening. That is, until Mr. Nelson walked by and tapped his fingers on my desk.

            I snapped out of it and looked up at him a little zoned out still.

            “Yes?” I asked confused.

            “Just making sure your mind is here with the rest of us, Miss Hayes.”

            I blushed as I realized it most certainly was not there with the rest of the class. When I looked around, I noticed that they were all staring at me. A few of them were even snickering a little. I sighed.

            “Yeah… sorry,” was all I could think to say.

            In reality our relationship just wasn’t like that. When I got to third hour I sat patiently waiting for Tori to show up. About ten minutes into class she finally walked in carrying her bag, which she set down outside the door of her office before turning to find our teacher, Mr. Baron.

            She wasn’t usually on time, so this was something I was used to, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make me a little sad.

            “Okay, looks like I’m going to be directing you guys today until Mr. Baron is done with his with the principal.”

            I looked up to see Tori standing up at the podium in his place and smiled. It had been so long since she had been the one standing up in front of us. It reminded me of back when I was in middle school.

            She handed us out new music, which I liked a lot more than just playing the same thing over and over again, and when she got to our section she paused, looking at each of us.

            “Okay…”She shuffled through the papers before starting to hand them out. “Kelsey.”

            She stuck out one of the pieces and I took it from her. When I looked it over my eyes widened a little. There were at least six different things I had to be playing in that one song. I looked up at her.

            “Uh…. I’m not the only one reading off of this part am I?” I asked.

            “Yeah, why?” she asked, seeming to actually be confused as to why I’d ask such a thing.

            “There are a lot of parts here.” I told her.

            “I know that. I also know that you can handle it. You’re a strong percussionist, Kelsey. Have some confidence in yourself.” She smiled before handing the last kid his part and walking away.

            I guess I should have been happy, after all, she did just compliment me, but my brain was too busy making me stress out. If there was one thing I liked to do in this class, it was look good for Tori. That’s why I practiced so much and made myself better all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I also loved what I was doing, but I was hoping she’d also be impressed.

            Now though, I wasn’t so confident I was going to pull this off. I sighed and set the papers on the stand in front of me, waiting for her to start conducting us.

-

            At the end of the hour, when we were finally done playing I put my music away in my folder and stuck it in the little cabinet our teacher had made for us to put them in. He never did come back to teaching us. Whatever our principal was talking to him about must have been really important.

            I did manage to stumble my way through the song Tori had given us. To be perfectly honest though, it was rough. Very rough. As hard as I tried over the years, sight reading was never one of my stronger abilities. I just hoped Tori didn’t think I did that bad.

            She came over to me after class as I was packing up my stuff in my back pack and getting ready to go to lunch with Lauren again.

            “Hey,” she said as she walked up to me. She put her hand on my shoulder which made me shiver a little. “Nice job today. I told you you’d do just fine.”

            “It was a little rough though.” I said.

            “Yeah, and it’s like that way for most people in here when they start learning a song they’ve never seen before. Considering you haven’t, I’d say you did pretty darn well.”

 She smiled, kept her hand on my shoulder as we awkwardly stood there looking into each other’s eyes for just a moment longer, and then she walked away. I almost fell over with happiness. All I could sit there and think was… she touched me. It brought another smile to my face that I just couldn’t control and I walked out the door in a surprisingly better mood than I was when I showed up to school that day.