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The weekend was a dead one: the kind of weekend spent staring at walls, feeling nothing, and doing less than nothing. Lying curled up on the couch and staring at a teddy bear was apparently all Eden could manage at the moment. The unprovoked thought occurred to him that when he was younger, he stood up for himself more.
“This isn’t even fun anymore! I hate class!”
“Eden, you’re just too young-”
“I’m old enough to know that this isn’t fun! Maybe you’re just too old!”
“You know better than to speak to me like that!” and with that it was over. His mom was done arguing, and pointed a white-knuckled hand to the stairs. He left with his eyes fixed on the floor. The only thing Eden remembered on his way to his room was the awkward shuffling of shoes across carpet. It was the particular sound that Eden knew well: an exit quiet enough not to be mistaken for an argument, quiet enough to let their words ring, but still all too loud. The way he closed the door felt rehearsed—he twisted the doorknob so carefully because every second and every decibel compounded his racing heartbeat. He hardly felt like a trained dancer in these sorts of situations, the way his feet felt heavy as rocks on his way to his room.
He hadn’t thought about that particular argument in a while, not even after the second or third time they repeated it. She would tell him to practice his arpeggios more, he would tell her that they’re boring and made him hate playing the clarinet at all, and she wouldn’t hear it. He eventually started to see her point—they were incredibly useful, and really did make playing easier in the long run—but still he never found the will to apologize.
It’s not that Eden hated his mother. And he didn’t hate music, either—not most of the time. But there were times where it was just so hard to get along, to pretend like he was okay with being who she wanted him to be and not having the words to say that. He could never say what she wanted him to say, so he found himself inventing all sorts of lies instead.
Some of his lies were easier to believe than others. Things like smiling or friendliness were easy to fake, and it was always easy to fool his mother. She wanted more than anything to see him smile or get along with his classmates, and Eden could tell she was looking for signs. A cheerful ‘good morning!’ to Theresa or high five to his dance partner after rehearsal would be enough to convince her that he was happy, no matter how inconsistently he pretended. The acting never had to be good to work.
The one lie that was really hard to sell, though, was that he practiced. Maybe if he was still a kid, he could pull it off. In a real competition, though, every one of his clarinet pieces had a minor third run and it was clear to anyone listening which players practiced those and which players didn’t. Currently on his third consecutive all-nighter, Eden fell solidly within the latter. He would need to perform for judges in the Angel of Music tournament today, and Eden knew with unflinching certainty that he was going to step onto that stage, lick his reed, and eat shit for four minutes straight. He might’ve had more time to practice if he got off the couch, if he was just a little bit less sad, but trying to be more productive wasn’t really working out this weekend.
He really shouldn’t have cared, it’s not like this tournament mattered to him, but the normal pre-concert butterflies had mixed with the thick, heavy-handed shame he felt in his stomach, and he felt like throwing up. No matter how much he tried to reason himself out of it, Eden still had some pride in his music, and felt all the more sick because of it.
An alarm on his phone made him jump. It was like waking up by getting water dumped over his head, he thought. He needed to leave for the tournament—and unfortunately Evans was already ready—he had no time left.
Eden said nothing on his way down the stairs, nor the driveway, or even as he put his clarinet in the backseat. He must have fallen asleep at some point during the drive, but he couldn’t say when. He woke up again to Evans shaking his arm and sending him off with a smile. Eden returned it, of course, with a horribly fake smile and wave, and dropped the act as soon as he was alone.
Before he could reach the building where his assigned concert hall was, he had to walk past lines and lines of people parting ways out front. Dads were wishing their sons good luck, mothers hugging their daughters, friends sharing a light breakfast before they went inside. The building itself towered over the street such that it completely blotted out the sun. The big pillars on the entranceway felt like something that demanded importance, greatness even, like they marked a place where Eden was not worthy to enter. He kept his head down to avoid his classmates and their stares as he shuffled through the concert hall’s corridors. He knew the layout well enough to find the practice rooms without asking anyone for directions, and found them before the building got too crowded.
There must have been a line earlier, though, because each of the practice rooms were already occupied. Eden tightened his grip around his clarinet case, he knew without looking that his knuckles were about as white as they were in his death-angel-skeleton-regalia. He needed to play through his sheet music at least once, maybe two or three times before he performed. If he needed to wait for a practice room, he ran the risk of tiring himself out practicing beforehand and not getting any rest in between. He wasn’t sure how much his embouchure had deteriorated over the past week—surely one week wasn’t enough to lose muscle, right? (he knew that it was.) Everything about this performance felt shaky and risky.
He needed to take a walk. Maybe that would shake him out of this mood—the nervousness, the sleep deprivation, the headaches—and maybe he would feel better. He pushed his way through the practice-room-crowd as politely as he could. The fake smile came back. As he moved his feet into each step, and each step into a lap around the concert hall, he tried to settle into a rhythm. He tried to slow his breathing down, and focus on that. It only seemed to make his headache louder.
He hit another crowd, snapping his attention back to the concert hall. There were a few tables here—some people filling up water bottles, others playing cards to kill time—and an overall hum of chatter and anticipation. A sick wave of jealousy washed over him. How nice would it be to be excited, to be killing time, before this? When was the last time he felt excited about anything?
His question was soon answered, however, in a moment of perfect revelation. Next to the water fountain, there were bathrooms. Empty bathrooms. It was such a beautifully stupid idea: if he couldn’t get a practice room, he could sit on top of a toilet and run through his music there. Sure, people would be annoyed. But there were a lot of people there, and no one would ever figure out who he was. He had complete anonymity to break every rule about practicing outside of designated rooms.
He walked to the bathrooms briskly, with his head down, but his feet didn’t feel as heavy anymore. There was the smallest glimmer of hope for him yet. He waited until no one was looking before he slipped into the stall with his clarinet case, and then set the lid of the toilet down so he could sit. He felt like a pretty big idiot putting his clarinet together while sitting on top of a toilet, but at least he wouldn’t feel like an idiot while performing. This could be fun.
It took a few moments to gather the resolve to actually start playing—it was awfully quiet when he taped his music to the stall door. When he did, though, he warmed up with a few scales and those arpeggios his mom always forced him to practice.
As he played, the music got smoother and the knots in Eden’s stomach began to loosen. He might be able to salvage this, even if his performance wasn’t great. He settled into a rhythm and played through the music once, twice—he lost track of time.
“Wow, I was almost nervous for this round,” someone said. “But who knew shit could play the clarinet?”
Eden froze. He hadn’t heard anyone come in while he was playing.
“Sorry, sorry, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” he continued. “I guess it was pretty crappy of me.” The voice stifled a laugh.
Eden knew that voice. He almost couldn’t believe his luck—the one time he made a fool of himself, the top ranked musician in the whole competition had to be there. And now he was getting dunked on by Celestino Dominguez. This weekend sucked.
“I’ll stop bothering you, my bad,” Celestino said. “You clearly have—eheheh— runs to get back to.”
“Are you done??” Eden shouted back. “Are you finished??? Who do you think you are? Take your awful puns and leave! I hope you trip on your way to your performance and die!”
His voice rang in the otherwise empty bathroom. Eden heard nothing after that except more stifled giggling and Celestino shuffling out the door. What a horrible stroke of luck. He thought he could get away with this one thing, but of course he had to embarrass himself anyways.
Eden was still smiling, though. It was at least a little funny, he thought, how awfully today was going. As much as he really didn’t want to laugh at Celestino’s stupid jokes, the situation was pretty ridiculous. Eden sat there for ten more minutes, scared that people would be waiting for him outside the bathroom door. Once he was fairly certain the coast was clear, Eden slipped out of the bathroom and sat down at one of the tables he passed earlier. He still had about thirty minutes until his performance, so he could answer some texts in the meantime.
He definitely couldn’t tell Hiroki about this (he would never let Eden live it down), but maybe Carlito would think it was a funny story. Lily probably wouldn’t believe him. And maybe he was still a little too embarrassed to ever tell this story at a party, but it was still fun to imagine his classmate’s faces as he retold each detail. Maybe, even if he had the worst luck in the world, there was still some way he could have fun with this competition.
If anything else, he smiled a real smile today. That counted for something, didn’t it?