Part 3

Axl

His last class of the day was music. It was the only class that made him feel free. He existed in school for this class every single day. The room was empty when he arrived, just like it always was. Dust floated lazily through the narrow beam of light cutting across the piano, and the familiar quiet wrapped around him like a second skin.

His teacher, Mrs. Harlow, had pulled him out a week into his junior year, dragged him to this same room, and switched the lights on.

“Can you play any instruments?” she asked him.

“The piano and guitar.”

“Sit and play something,” she said, indicating to the piano.

“Classical or contemporary?” he asked her.

She smirked and handed him a sheet of music. He sat down on the stool and took a deep breath. The notes of Beethoven’s concerto filled the air, and he closed his eyes. He played the music by heart, his soul contracting painfully. It was the one good thing his mother did for him, teaching him how to play.

Every note tightened something in his chest, a familiar ache that never quite faded, no matter how many times he played the piece.

“You didn’t read the music,” she said.

“I don’t know how, but I know this piece.”

“You have raw talent, Axl,” she said, and turned toward the door. “You’ll report to this room from now on for your music class.”

The next day, she had left a sheet of music on top of the piano, and he smiled when he lifted the lid and saw she’d marked the notes out on the keys. On the sheet music, she’d written the names of the notes underneath each one. It had felt less like a lesson and more like someone quietly deciding he was worth the effort.

For the next six months, Mrs. Harlow taught him how to read music, even though he hadn’t seen her once. Every day, there was something new to learn. She taught him about the flow of the notes and how to appreciate each raw sound.

The last few months of junior year, she turned the tables on him and asked him to write his own music. It had taken him weeks, matching the notes with the sounds he wanted and writing them down on paper. It was just music to most, but to him, it was the unspoken part of his soul, reaching out, guiding the words, swaying in the air around him. Music was like air; he could feel it and dream it. He could make a melody and tie it together with notes and words to create something from nothing. For once, he could say what mattered without opening his mouth.

It was a heady feeling, and Axl spent hours in that room before he was finally happy to hand in his assignment. A week later, Mrs. Harlow was waiting for him, and she asked him to play the music he had written.

By the end of the song, she had tears in her eyes, and he felt powerful. She hadn’t said a word, but after that one assignment, he had free reign over his music period. He spent it writing, rehearsing, and writing some more. It was the closest he had ever come to believing he might be good at something that mattered.

It was one of the few places where he didn’t have to think, where he could let his guard down and just be. Mrs. Harlow gave him that freedom, and he knew he definitely wanted to pursue music going forward, but he was also realistic. College wasn’t an option for him, and he’d known it the day he saw Peyton for the first time. Some doors closed the moment responsibility showed up in your arms.

His thoughts kept going back to Merit, the new girl. She smelled like heartbreak, and Axl knew he should step in and sever the friendship Aspen was starting with her, for his own sake. He had enough life experience to know that two types of women existed in his life: one was like his mother, out to use you and leave you when things got rough; the second type, like Aspen and Merit. They might be nice and sweet, but they expected a better life, not one stuck in a trailer park.

The door to the class opened, and Keisha Williams walked in and smiled at him. She paid him for piano lessons, and he had no qualms about taking her money during school hours. She was hopeless, and he knew why she was doing it, but it wouldn’t work.

She had a bet going with her friends that she could hook up with him. Being a loner worked for him. He saw and heard more than people thought. He was also used to being used, but taking the fifty dollars she spent on each lesson turned the tables a little.

“Hi,” she said, not even trying to hide her interest.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Keisha, this little arrangement of ours isn’t turning out like I hoped it would,” he said.

She tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and looked at him through her lashes. “What were you hoping would happen?”

“You like me, right?” She nodded her head. “How would it work?”

They were sitting close together on the piano stool, and she shifted even closer to him. “What do you mean?”

“You know I have a baby and I live in a trailer park, so how would it work? Would you come over to my place, use me, then leave? Will you run to your friends and tell them all about your wild night with me? Is slumming it with me something you need to tick off your bucket list?”

She leaned back and watched him for a few seconds. “I don’t care if you have a baby. I just really like you.”

“Let me tell you a secret, and you’re welcome to share it. I’ve known from the start why you wanted piano lessons, and I played your little game, but I really need this time to work on my music; you’re never going to get the hang of this. I’m not your toy, and I’m definitely not going to hook up with you. Find a nice, preppy boy that your parents will approve of. I’m not going to be your stepping stone into womanhood.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said, and shifted away from him.

“Yeah, I am, but you're welcome to stay and unzip me if that’s what you want.”

She looked around the room. “Here?”

“Why not? This is what you want, right?”

“I mean…if that’s what you want,” she said.

“Get on your knees and show me.”

Axl shifted on the piano stool as she got to her feet and went down on her knees in front of him. He leaned his torso forward and the stoic look returned to his face. “You make this shit too easy, and I don’t like easy.”

He grabbed his backpack and walked out of the classroom, leaving Keisha on her knees.