Out of Tune: The Original 2015 Draft

chapter 5

Without music life would be a mistake

-Freidrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Have you had a chance to think about any band names yet?" Spencer asked me as I stopped at my locker. It had been three days since the incident in the cafeteria and this was the first time he had questioned me about potential names.

Sadly, I shook my head. "I've been thinking but I've got nothing at the moment. You want something that people will remember, not just any random name that sounds good. I'll let you know if I come up with anything, though."

Spencer smiled gratefully at me. "Thanks, Aileen. And I really mean that. You didn't have to help us out, but I'm glad that you are."

I flushed and stared at the ground for a moment, unused to such open praise. "Well, you're welcome. I can't think of anyone else that I'd rather be helping."

Spencer's smile widened considerably as he turned back to look into his locker. I shut my locker door and turned to him. "See you later, Spence."

I headed outside then, allowing the warm sun to bask on my skin. I was taking the bus home; Brad and my mom were still angry at me for Saturday night, and this was their way of punishing me. If only they knew that I preferred the bus to a car ride. At least this way I could avoid Brad for a little while longer.

It took me about an hour to get home and when I finally arrived I was met with still silence and the tense awkwardness that came with Brad being in the same room as me. He narrowed his eyes at me, as if challenging me to say something obnoxious, but I just shook my head at him.

"I'll be in my room," I muttered as I trudged upstairs. This had been my routine for the past several days. I would come home and then promptly head to my room where I would complete my homework in record time before staring at my guitar which was challenging me a thousand times more than Brad's stare. It just gave me that feel as if it was begging me to pick it up and strum a few chords.

I never did, though I couldn't deny that sometimes I wanted to. It was like a never-ending game of tug-of-war. My heart was telling me to play but my mind was telling me not to, as if the guitar would inflict the same wounds that my father's passing had. My mind always seemed to win out and I would never play, but the next day it would be the exact same thing.

Sooner or later one would win out. I would either play again, for good this time with no more unexplained absences, or I wouldn't. It was my decision, but it was a tough one. On the one hand, I missed playing. I missed feeling the steady instrument underneath my hands as I played a melody of my own devices, but on the other hand, music, while able to heal, had also been known to injure, at least injure me.

Sighing, for the first time tonight, I glanced away from the instrument leaning against the wall and turned my attention to my math books.

Several hours later, my math was done, as was all my other homework and I was back to staring at the guitar. While I stared, I contemplated new names for Spencer's band. I tried to come up with something original, but everything sounded exactly as Spencer's had yesterday, as if I had swallowed a dictionary and was now spitting up words at random, which was definitely not what they wanted.

I went to bed early that night and fell into a sleep where music notes chased me around staff lines. Needless to say, I woke up feeling like I hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. As I rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom, I couldn't help but notice how there were large deep bruises under my eyes, evidence of my lack of sleep over the past few days. I looked like a zombie...but worse somehow. I had no energy, truthfully, I didn't even want to go to school, but I didn't really have much of a choice in that aspect.