My C String is Out of Tune

4

   First and second period went by quickly. Lyla is in both my first and second period but third period is the class I dread most. Orchestra. Lyla isn't in orchestra, she's in band. Lucky. She plays the French horn.

   I walked into the orchestra room and surprisingly, there were a lot of people already there and unpacking and tuning their instruments. I walked up to a teacher and told her about how I'm new and don't have a viola yet. She let me borrow one to use that had tapes to show where to put my fingers.

   I thought this would be easy. It's a beginners orchestra class so this shouldn't be too hard right? I know how to read bass clef and treble clef from playing piano but when I got my sheet music, I was dumbfounded. What the heck is an alto clef? Why is it like this? Why is alto clef so weird?

   Violin uses treble clef. Cello and double bass use the bass clef. WHY DID THE INSTRUMENT I PICK HAVE TO BE WEIRD? Whatever. It's okay.

   I put rosin on my bow and put the viola on my shoulder to start tuning but my c string was very flat. I turned to the person next to me for help because I didn't want to break my string in accident.

   "Hey. My C string is out of tune. Can you help me?"

   He flashed a smile at me. "Of course." He seemed very cheerful and it was kind of weird but I didn't mind too much.

He finished tuning my instrument and gave it back. One of the teachers stood at the front and told us to run through one of the pieces we were given. I, of course was sight reading it because I've never seen it before. I sight read it surprisingly well though it didn't really matter since everyone else sounded bad too.

The teacher stopped us in the middle of playing because it sounded so bad and started working with the violins. All the cellists and bassists started talking to each other and most of the violists were shadow practicing or they were basically asleep.

   The kid who tuned my instrument stopped shadow practicing for a bit and turned to me. "You're clearly new here. What's your name?"

   I'm clearly new? Is that an insult or..? "Uhm. I'm Teo. Who are you?"

   He smiled widely again before answering. "I'm Harley." There was a slight bit of awkward silence before I nodded and turned to my sheet music and started to shadow practice the first eight measures.

   Harley.... The boy's name played over and over again in my head as I was no longer focusing on the music but my mind only thinking about the child sitting next to me.

   I turned to look at him. He wasn't short, nor was he tall. He wasn't pale, nor very dark. He had a few freckles that were sprawled across his face but they were so light that you had to know they were there to see them. His hair and eyes were not vibrantly colored. Just black. Black pupils with blacker irises but they still shone when the light hit them. The only thing that was super noticeable and different about his appearance was his smile.

His smile was bright and wide and complimented his face whenever it appeared. I'm sure if he were a girl, I'd fall for him......

Wait- what? No no no no. I'm not gay. I'm the straightest straight person who ever straighted.

But still I couldn't look away from him. I don't even know why. There is just something about him that I like more than Lyla. (A/N: yeah, the fact that he's a guy bc ur gay. Lol sorry) I just can't quite put my finger on it.....