The room was bleak as I filed into the music room, all hope lost when it came to having an...

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:58:54 -0500

The room was bleak as I filed into the music room, all hope lost when it came to having an interesting lesson. You’d think a music lesson would be fun, right? But in Mr Samplers class, all you did was sit around whilst he talked bullshit for an hour. You were lucky if you got to do anything practical at all.

“Good morning class,” he began, face displeased from the slow grumbling of the pupils before him.

I, JJ Hamblett, was admittedly one of the most vocally talented of the group and wasn’t looking forward to the lesson at all. It was just another boring, unproductive day.

“Now, I’d like to introduce a new face to you all,” Mr Sampler turned to the right side of the room and motioned to the boy. “This is George Shelley, he used to attend a performing arts school before he moved. I can tell you now the class is lucky to have him.”

Chuckling to myself, I thought well damn, the poor kid isn’t lucky to come here. I glanced over just as the rest of the class did to see the boy sat awkwardly on his chair, eyes fixed on the floor and cheeks burning red.

“Now, we are going to mix things up a little today for George and do some practical work.”

The moment ‘practical work’ left his mouth, the faces in the room lit up. Finally.

“I’m going to pair you up and give you an instrument. Use it as best you can to create some beautiful sounds together.”

He’s going to pair us up, I thought with a sigh. I was far from excited about the thought of being paired with Ethan again, the boy who’s ass crack was constantly on show. Praying inside my head to be paired with someone decent was the only option.

“You and umm… you,” he started moving through the room, pointing at random people and telling them to stand together at the back.

I had accepted his fate, eyes darting to all the decent people being chosen already.

“Right, George, go stand there with, hmm,” he pondered for a few before pointing at me and I sighed in relief and clambered out from behind my desk to greet the new boy.

“H-Hello,” George offered a smile which I returned, taking a good look at his face.

He had messy brown hair and prominent cheeks that stood out whenever he smiled, which was beginning to seem like a lot. I wasn’t sure if it was nervous giggling or if George was just the type to giggle at everything, but he sure as hell had some sort of problem with it. Not that I minded, I kind of liked the way his voice cracked slightly as his laughter rose in pitch. It was almost cute. But I couldn’t let himself describe it as ‘cute’ because I was most definitely not going to associate that word with a boy and I most definitely wasn’t spending my time thinking about it.

“I hope we don’t get a keyboard,” I spoke, attempting to start a conversation.

“How come?”

“Well firstly, the school ones are shit and secondly, I prefer an actual piano.”

George let out a small giggle and nodded in agreement, cheeks already pink without even saying anything. I could tell he was the shy type. From the way he hid his hands under the sleeves of his blazer and blushed at any sort of social interaction, you know, it wasn’t exactly hard to realize.

“You two,” Mr Sampler waltzed over, placing a finger to his lips in thought. “How about two lovely acoustic guitars.”

George’s face lit up, unlike mine which resembled more of an ‘oh shit’ kind of look, for I was not the slightest familiar with the ways of playing one. Once in the practice room away from the other students, it was silent and quite a bit awkward.

“So,” I broke the silence. “You play?”

“Playing guitar is literally my life,” he blushed again, holding the guitar most naturally beneath his arms.

“Well that’s good, at least one of us knows how to.”

George gasped, as if it was unheard of to not be able to play one.

“What?” I questioned.

“S-Sorry, I uh, guess you want me to teach you then?” He scrunched up his nose slightly.

“Well, yeah.”

George put his guitar down and pulled his stool closer to mine, watching as I tried to hold the instrument.

“How do you even hold this thing?”

George rolled his eyes and moved to stand behind me.

“So uh, y-you put your arm over the bottom part like this,” he leaned in from behind and moved my arm into position, doing the same for the other.

I thought, why not just show me yourself and let me copy you? But I couldn’t complain because George was warm and the rub of his chest to my back was almost comforting.

“Right, now how do I play a chord?”

“Uh, start off with an easy one, like an A,” George leaned in again, hands trembling slightly as he pressed my fingers to the right strings.

I strummed once, the noise coming out terrible and I began to lose hope already. Instruments weren’t my thing, I preferred singing. When I chose music as an option I was convinced the whole point of doing it was to learn how to play things. Obviously not.

“Dude, I can’t do this,” I sighed.

“Yes you can!” George encouraged, returning to his stool. “Press down on the strings harder.”

This time I strummed, the sound came out clear.

“Told you that you could do it.”

I looked up with a grin, proud of myself. George picked up his guitar and played another chord which he said was a ‘G’. He was such a natural when it came to this, no wonder he was a former student of where he went.

“It’s quite easy,” I eventually admitted, beginning to play some sort of tune between the two of the chords.

George joined in playing his part, it all looked very complicated but his hands flowed like a professional across the strings and to my surprise we ended up creating a good piece.

“So, why’d you move here?” Curiosity got the better of me, eager to know why on earth someone so talented would move to some shitty public school.

“My, uh, parents lost a lot of money. Uh, b-basically the guy my dad worked for did a runner and left all his workers with no pay,” he sighed, fingers still running up and down the guitar as he spoke. “We had no choice but to move. I-It’s not really a big deal, we can live, we’re not completely broke. Anyway, it’s nice to try something a bit different y-you know?”

I nodded, smiling to myself. George was pretty decent from what I’d seen and I thought well, maybe music class wouldn’t be so bad anymore.

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Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:18:26 -0500

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The room was bleak as I filed into the music room, all hope lost when it came to having an...

fer liv