The next morning I woke up to my sister screaming at the top of her
lungs. "I DON'T WANT TO BRUSH MY HAIR! IT'S MY HAIR!!!!" she was yelling. I groaned and rolled over. There's no way I'm going back to sleep. "Fine, I don't feel like arguing with you today!" that was my mother's voice. Giving in. Of course that doesn't surprise me at all. "You have to choose your battles." She often tells me. But, how is she choosing her battles when Olivia always gets what she wants? Whatever, I don't try and pretend I understand her brain.
After I hear the door close, meaning that they were gone, I roll over and grab my phone. Two new notifications, both Facebook. I don't know why I was upset. It's not like I expected Jackson to text me or anything.
I sigh and go on Facebook. One notification was just a birthday for some distant cousin. But the other was a post from Jackson on the "Trumpeteers" page.
Please remember to memorize your music, we have another sectional tomorrow and the parade is on Tuesday. Message or text me with any questions or concerns.
How is it that he seems so much nicer online than in person? "Any questions or concerns" really? After being a total ass-wad yesterday this was the last thing I expected. Oh well no time to dwell on it now. I have music to memorize.
Since I knew there was no way Catie had anything memorized I decided to call her and see if she wanted to come work on it together.
As soon as she answered, I knew I had woken her up. "Good morning sunshine! How are you?" I said in my perkiest voice. "What the fuck do you want?" she moaned back at me. "Well I was wondering if you would like to come over and work on memorizing music with me because we have the parade coming up." She groaned into the phone "yes how could I forget we have a parade coming up since you keep reminding me constantly! Let me ask my dad" I hear sounds of her standing up and walking downstairs. A couple minutes later she comes back "He'll bring me in about two hours." She announced. "Sounds good, love you!" I say. "Love you too."
After hanging up and throwing my phone on my bed I stand up and stretch and get ready to take a shower.
An uneventful two hours later, Catie walks into my room carrying her trumpet and music.
"Yay! You're here!" I say grabbing my music stand and placing it in the middle of the room.
"We're starting now?" she whines at me.
I ignore her and take out my music. "Okay, so my goals for today are to memorize the Fight Song and the beginning of the first song for the parade. Sound good?" I ask while grabbing my trumpet. Catie groans and starts taking her trumpet out too.
After ten minutes of messing around with warm-ups, we finally decide to get down to business. "Okay, let's take the first phrase and play it through twice then try and turn around and play it without looking." I suggest.
We managed to get through two phrases before we started gossiping.
"So, our section leaders are very interesting, right?" Catie says.
I shrug. "Yeah I mean Jackson is kind of an ass. I really don't want to be around him."
"I know." She sighs. "What a shame, he's so cute too."
"We need to get back to this! This next part will be the hardest part of the song."
"Okay, okay" she huffs and we get back to work.
An hour later I have the whole song memorized and Catie gave up twenty minutes before I was done. We decided not to do the song for the parade because we looked it up and it was just way too hard.
I waved goodbye as she got in her dads car and they pulled down the driveway.
Glancing at my phone I saw that I had about an hour before my mom got home with my sister. Just enough time to take a nap. I go upstairs and lay in my bed placing my phone on the night stand.
Exactly forty-five minutes later, I awake to high heels stamping through the house, pots and pans banging around, and yelling. Guess who's home?
What I never understood was how my mother constantly complained about not having enough money and how she "can't take any time off of work at all" because she needs all the time she can get...but she can leave half an hour early every day? Makes perfect sense.
I groan and get up to go take my chances down stairs. I get down there to see my mom making dinner and Olivia watching TV and making a ton of unnecessary noise.
"Hi! How was your day today?" My mom asks smiling.
"Fine." I answer.
"Did you have fun with Catie?"
"Yup."
"Get done everything you needed?"
"Mhm. Need any help?" I ask trying to get her off of me.
"No thanks, I'm good for now." She smiles at me.
I go into the living room and sit on the couch, waiting for what I knew would come next. Sure enough, not five minutes later, mom's voice yells, "UGH NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE HELPS ME"
Now wait a minute, I just asked if she needed help...didn't I? Yes I did. Welcome to my insanely messed up and confusing life.
I cover my face with my hands and laugh out of frustration.
An hour later we all finished dinner and Jeremy walked through the door. No, I will not call him dad. Ever. Just because this was number...three...no, four? Anyways, I'm not calling him dad.
Jeremy walked over to my mom and kissed her. Not wanting to see any more than I had too, I quickly reminded my mom of the sectional tomorrow at three and asked her where my new lyre was.
After finding out it was "On the counter you ungrateful brat" I went to grab it and went up to my room.
After cleaning my trumpet and making sure everything was in my case, I plopped into bed and plugged my phone in. I was still a little upset that no one texted me...especially Jackson, but I didn't honestly expect him to.
The next morning I woke up from a dream about Jackson. This was getting creepy. I don't even know him! I looked at my phone and saw no notifications. It was, however, almost one in the afternoon.
I got up and stretched and headed to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready.
By time I had everything together, it was time to leave. When my mom pulled up to Jackson's house for the second time, I walked up and sat next to Catie and Fern.
"Okay" Jackson said. "Time to get started. Every one stand up and line up on the non-gravel part of the driveway."
Kyle came over and put us in two lines, separating me from Catie and Fern. We were called into attention, the most uncomfortable position ever. This was all we'd learned so far. Jackson and Kyle walked around critiquing us. "Don't hug your horn" Kyle was saying trying to help Lucas, another freshmen who I have not liked since he dented my trumpet in seventh grade.
I kept my gaze straight forward as they continued walking and critiquing. When Jackson got to me I thought I was doing very well he was almost by me when he said, "Your feet need to be farther apart" and moved on.
I mentally sighed and adjusted sneaking a glance at Fern and Catie who were laughing their asses off. I smiled and looked away quickly before I started laughing too. Kyle was clearly the cause of the laughter because he was standing in front of them laughing.
Jackson cleared his throat and it was obvious that any fun having was over. "Okay." He said. "You guys pretty much have attention down so we're going to work on basics."
He proceeded to show us different moves including a left and right hace and an about hace. They weren't hard, at least I didn't think so. He sat there calling the moves out and we had to follow them.
"Left hace"
We all turned left
"Right hace"
We all turned right
This went on for about ten minutes until he called a left hace and both Catie and Fern sat there, both hands out in L-shapes trying to figure out their left from their right.
After a lot of laughing and even a chuckle from Jackson, to my surprise, it was decided that we were done for today.
Everyone was leaving, but Jackson asked to see me for a second before I left.
I almost choked on my own spit as I walked over to him. My face was probably as red as a tomato.
"Yes?" I asked nervously.
He moved very close to me. So close that all I can smell is him, and he smells heavenly. His mouth is so close to my ear I feel his breath on my neck.
I wonder what he could possibly have to say to me and why he would want to say it this close to me. He moves even closer which I didn't think was possible.
He whispered the words so softly I wasn't sure I heard him right.
"Don't chew gum at sectionals" and with that he was gone.
I sat there in shocked silence.
What. The. Hell.