The Sunshine Club

1. Drew

'Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.' ~ Jon Sinclair

***

There is a boy stood on a stage, the lights blinding him. He doesn't mind - he doesn't need his eyes to perform. He holds his violin and bow with practised hands, his fingers poised and perfect. The audience listens, enraptured. He pulls the bow across the strings again and again, sewing a tune with his needle and thread. He plays a Beatles song, gentle yet lively. For just a moment, he has the whole world captured between the strings of his instrument. Then the moment ends, and he finishes the song. There is a beat of silence before the applause come crashing down on him, lifting him up onto a wave of pride. He bows, breathing heavily from the adrenaline coursing through his body, then walks offstage, holding his violin and bow like a shield and sword.

After a brief pause, a balding man in a too-tight suit walks out holding a microphone with sweaty hands. He announces the next competitor in a tinny voice:

"Andrew Quinton."

Silence. One, Two, Three... Eventually ten seconds pass and nothing happens. The audience begins to murmur. The man's face reddens.

"Andrew Quinton? Drew?"

***

"Drew?" It's my dad, leaning over and touching my shoulder gently. I blink myself out of my daydream and wriggle out of his grasp.

"What?" I mutter with a scowl. I barely register that the car has stopped moving. We're here. I look out the dirty window at the building. It's boring, a plain grey concrete rectangle with tall windows and a white plastic front door. The door is slight off centre, I note, and it makes me grind my teeth. The front of the building has a sparse, neglected garden, with a few trees from which leaves have all fallen and now litter the barren ground around them. There is a stone path leading to the infuriating imperfect door, and at the other end of the path, nearest to the street is a battered wooden sign with a few letters missing. I still know exactly what is says, however: 'Old Pine Community Center'.

I've only been here a couple of times, in like fourth grade or something, when we had cooking lessons and our school took us here. The only thing I really remember was cracking an egg over a kid's head for some reason or another that I can't recall, though my memory insists it was justified. Several eggs, actually. My dad had not been happy.

Now, I wish could go back to those cooking lessons and slam my head in the oven door, Sylvia Plath style. I'd save a lot of people a lot of effort, I think.

"I know you don't want to be here." My dad tries. I scoff, still refusing to look at him. That's a fucking understatement.

"By here, do you mean alive?" I retort. I see him flinch out of the corner of my eye. It's been two months and he still tip toes around the subject, like ignoring it will make it all go away.

"Don't say that, Drew." He says with a tut, and his eyebrows pull together tightly. I don't get why he is so upset by all of this. It's not like he's the one that tried to kill himself.

"Three months. That's all."

This time I do look at him and raise my eyebrows and cross my arms.

"I'm sorry, do you have any idea how long three months is?" I ask abruptly. How can my own father be so oblivious to how stupid this is? Traitor. Et tu, Padre?

It's almost as if he hears my thoughts then, because he glares at me. His grey eyes are usually calm, but now they look like a thunderstorm, dark and almost bruiselike,

"Well you're the one who refused to stay in hospital." He says sharply.

I opened my mouth to spit something back, but I have nothing.