PIECE BY PIECE, Cas assembled her clarinet. When the instrument was together, she took a seat on the piano bench and began to play.
Mozart. Her favorite.
Not for the first time, Cas wished she played the piece better. It was one she’d started learning before she’d had to leave her last school. She’d been determined to get it as perfect as she could. Only her schedule last year didn’t give her as much time to practice as she needed. And at home . . . well, everyone else needed quiet when they were doing homework or when her mother was on the phone. When her father was around, he always said she should go for a run.
So to avoid conflicts at home, she’d practiced here fifteen minutes before and after school and eventually during her half-hour lunch period. Music was the one thing that made her happy. And when she played something beautiful, she almost could convince herself that she was beautiful too.
Sound filled the room. Cas closed her eyes so she could tune out everything else. So that nothing around her existed but the music and the need to create a resonant and pure sound.
The fingering still tripped her up. The tone got breathy, and here and there, she went off pitch. But it was better. And when she finished the piece, she started again to make it better still. Steady breathing. Leaning into each line. Feeling the flow of notes through her. Control of every moment. Maybe if she . . .
“Why aren’t you in marching band?”
She jumped. The instrument honked. Embarrassment flooded her at the realization that someone had heard her make that sound and of how stupid she probably looked through the practice-room window while she played. Slowly, she turned toward the voice and almost fell off her seat.
Frankie Ochoa.
Football captain. Big man on campus. The guy everyone in the school recognized but she’d never talked to—not once. She doubted he had ever noticed her at school, but now he was standing in the doorway, staring at her.
“What do you want?” she asked, glancing down at the bag near her feet. She let out a sigh of relief. The bag was zipped shut.
“I was on my way to the gym and heard the music. I wanted to see who was making it.” He leaned against the doorjamb and hooked his fingers through the belt loops on his shorts. “You sound good. Way better than anything they’re playing out on the field right now.”
She waited for him to follow up with a joke. But he just looked at her as if he was curious why she wasn’t saying a damn thing.
“Thanks,” she finally said.
“You’re Cas, right? I think we had advanced bio together last year.”
“Yeah. We did,” she said quietly. He was a year older than Cas, but she was a year ahead in science, so they’d been in the same class. He’d taken his frog off the tray and made it dance while Mr. Rizzo was passing out the rest of the specimens.
“I don’t know about you, but I escaped having any classes in the dungeon room this year. I’m like a plant,” he said with a smile. “I need sunlight.”
Everyone called Mr. Rizzo’s room the dungeon because it had only two skinny windows, which didn’t let in any sunlight. Mr. Rizzo tried to keep things interesting, but there were at least one or two kids every semester who fell asleep in that room.
Frankie stared at her again—waiting for her to speak.
Cas’s stomach twisted as she tried to come up with a funny or interesting response that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot.
Thankfully, Frankie filled the silence. “I meant what I said, you know. You’re good. Is that why you decided not to be part of marching band? Too talented for the hacks?”
“What’s with you and marching band?” she asked. “Do you have a thing for polyester uniforms?”
He laughed.
“Not especially,” he admitted with an easy grin. “But there is something funny about watching people try to look dignified while wearing purple-and-gold polyester. It’s just not possible. I go to a lot of football games and have become quite the connoisseur of marching bands and their uniforms. Ours is the worst of the lot. Thankfully, we’re in the locker room when they play at halftime, so we’re spared what they’re trying to pass off as music. It’s pretty clear no one in that band practices the way you do. Talent means nothing unless you take the time to hone it.”
Before Cas could decide whether Frankie was serious about the compliment he’d just paid her, he looked down at his watch and pushed away from the doorjamb. “Speaking of locker rooms, I have to head down to practice.” Frankie took a step back. His expression turned serious as he added, “You really are good, you know. I’m glad I got to hear you play.” With that, he disappeared down the hall.
Cas stared at the closed door—heart pounding, palms sweating. Finally, she lifted the clarinet to her mouth to once again focus on the music, but instead she kept thinking about the boy who had just been in the doorway.
Frankie was popular. Always had a girlfriend and a crowd of people around him and could do no wrong—kind of like a modern-day prince. Which was fitting, since he’d been on the homecoming court last year—something several kids had said was unfair, since everyone was certain he was the one behind the chickens found in the cafeteria the week before. But no one ever said anything too loudly, because everyone knew he needed to be on the field if their team had a chance of going to state. She hadn’t thought he’d known she existed.
The star of the football team knew her name. Cas wasn’t sure how she felt about that, or if she wanted to feel anything. To keep herself from thinking too much, she took a deep breath and picked up playing where she had left off—before Frankie had interrupted.
Low notes as open and full as she could make them. High notes that floated on the air. All the while, she watched the window in the door of the practice room in case someone appeared—telling herself she didn’t want to be interrupted, but deep down wishing that someone else would come. When she got to the end of the piece, she played it again. Waiting . . .
It was stupid. There was no reason to think someone else would stop by and care that she was in here. But Frankie’s visit had made her think maybe, just maybe, there was hope.
Every time she’d believed that things would get better, she’d been proven wrong. She’d found reasons to hope and always ended up feeling worse when the disappointment crashed down on her. But maybe if there was one more sign that she should reconsider what she came here to do today, she would. She would walk away from her decision. She’d try to change things another way.
She played the piece again. Louder. The notes cracked under the pressure. Or maybe it was her soul that cracked each time the tone broke.
She played louder still, no longer caring what the music sounded like. Only caring about the volume. She wanted someone else to hear. To know that she was in this room. To care that she was . . . that she just was.
After the fourth time through, Cas lowered the instrument onto her lap. No one had heard. There was no other sign.
Cas wiped the tears from her cheeks and sat there for several heartbeats as the hope she’d felt faded, leaving the familiar hollowness of disappointment behind. Carefully she took the clarinet apart, removed the reed from the mouthpiece, and put everything back in the blue-lined case. Cas unzipped the side pocket of her bag and pulled out the note she’d written dozens of times over the last few months before tearing each of those earlier versions into little shreds. She placed the envelope on top of the clarinet before closing the lid and running her hand over the outside of the sleek black case. The clarinet was one of the only things she truly loved. It was always there. It never judged.
Taking a deep breath, Cas picked up her bag with one hand and the clarinet case with the other, then headed out of the practice room.
The band room was empty. Open instrument cases sat on chairs and were strewn across the floor, along with dozens of backpacks. The music-office windows were dark. Everyone must still be at marching-band practice. Would Frankie laugh when he saw them stumbling around in the heat and think of her?
Probably not.
Frankie had asked if she thought she was too good to be a part of marching band. He’d said those words without sarcasm or a snide tone, and she wished he’d been right.
She waited for several minutes, thinking that if the band finished practice and came back in—if someone said hello—she’d change her mind. Last year, when she’d first stepped into this room, she’d been certain her family was correct. That everything from before wouldn’t matter. That things would be different here, because this place was different.
They’d lied.
Nothing was different. And at some point, it would get worse, just as it had before. She wanted to blame her mom for saying it would be okay if she dressed differently and her father for saying she just had to act as if she belonged and she would. They didn’t understand, and they refused to listen when she tried to tell them. They didn’t get that she didn’t fit in.
She wasn’t skinny like the popular girls. She used to always say the wrong thing, so now she just said nothing. Frizzy hair. Stupid laugh. Pimples on her forehead that no cream could make go away.
This summer she finally realized it wasn’t the other kids that were the problem or her father or mother or her annoying shrink. There was only one constant in all of it.
Her.