Don't Sleep With the Drummer

♤ 9. Kasin ♤

Kasin strained his breath, feeling the weakness of missing two meals finally hit his stomach. He hated having to redo fasting days, but he knew he had to. Thankfully, he had split the make-up days so it didn't affect his system as badly as it did every Ramadan. If only he knew he'd have to be waiting tables that weekend, he might've changed make-up days.

"Do you want a break?" his mother, Carina, asked from behind the table. She was in early to help with the morning rush, and then she would go off to her nursing job in Glendale. Anyone with eyes could see she didn't fit in with the other waiters and waitresses. Unlike the other works, she had on her salmon colored scrubs and hideous white nurse shoes you could probably see all the way in space.

"You should've left an hour ago," Kasin stated sharply as he wiped down the table in front of him. "It's a long drive, you should go now. Beat the traffic and all."

He hadn't meant for it to sound cold, but it did. It felt like a decade since he saw his mother and it probably seemed like a centaury for Hamid and Mirza.

Uncomfortably, she tucked her caramel hair behind her ear, "I know." Her accent was fading, Kasin detected. The smallest evidence that she had been raised on the border of India was vanishing. "Are you okay? You seem a little dizzy."

"I'm fine, mami," he shooed her away with a wave of his hand, "I'm fasting."

She shook her head disappointingly, "Well you wouldn't have done make up days if you weren't lollygagging with your friends."

"It wasn't lollygagging," Kasin corrected. "It was Battle of the Bands."

A foreign look graced across her face. She was testing him, she always was. "And who won again?"

"She-Demon."

She-Demon was the band from Costa Masa High down in Orange County. The undefeatable band consisted of three legendary sisters, which made them even hotter than they already were. Vince had dated the drummer, Harmony, back in Year 10, but it didn't take for long for them to go their separate ways, given the long distance.

"You know, I saw your school on the news the other day," Carina said flatly. She always found a way to sound disinterested in what Kasin and his friends did at their Arts school. "I wasn't really listening all that much, but I do recall it saying something about a protest against the school board."

"Yeah, they kicked a band teacher out last year and kids are still rallying against it."

"I'm sure they can get a new band teacher."

Kasin's hand froze in mid-wipe, his eyes still focused on the rag that was cleaning off a difficult ketchup stain, "Mr. Martinez wasn't just some band teacher. He understood the students and made class feel less like a class."

Carina backpedaled, "I'm sorry," she waved her hands in front of her, clearly seeing she had pushed the wrong button. "I just don't get it as a parent."

No, you just don't get it. Period. Kasin had wanted to snap back with that, but like with most of his honest thoughts, he kept it to himself. His mother was the only one against Kasin leaving behind their family to attend Grand Arts for a study in Music. His father had smiled like he had never before, overjoyed at the news...but his mother? Completely the opposite. It wasn't like she was those typical parents who asked for their child to get a "reliable job" instead. She had faith in his music, she just didn't want him to get hurt and disappointed the way she had when only failure seemed to greet her at the door.

Carina never talked about her dancing years to her children, but the aged photos spoke words on their own. Words she didn't need to say. She looked happy in those photos with their worn out edges and little scribbles of text on the back. Carina had been just as big of a dreamer Kasin was. The only different was that she had lost hope to a world that only ever took dreams to decimate them into nothing more than half-lived wishes wasted on birthday candles and shooting stars.