The Color of Music

Chapter 5- The Caucasity

Their eyes confirmed to me that I was just as much as a sore thumb as I felt. My hair was down now, puffy and with tousled spikes like I wanted to scream I am black.

Today couldn't get worse.

The teacher looked me over once and smiled with a awkward laugh. A laugh that said well look what the cat dragged in.

"You're Sonata Albon?"

It was not said like a question. So I didn't answer. I smiled, which tightened my chest and widened the eyes of my peers. Because what else was I supposed to say? No? Say no when the teacher had announced it so sure? So validated in his assumption because of my hair, my nose, and my lips?

My blackness had given me away. My blackness was perfect for them, a sort of visual silence that gave a revered and immediate yes in my stead.

Yes, I am Sonata Albon. No, I did not get to introduce myself.

And of course, as if god himself timed it; the four boys I desperately wanted to avoid appeared in the doorway. Perfect, confident, wealthy and white. They didn't have to introduce themselves either, they had special ties with their family crest as big as their egos. Their race didn't give away who their parents were.

The caucasity of it all.

The teacher said nothing as we filed into the remaining empty seats admittedly rather far from each other. I learned their name was Mr. Pinn. I decided did not like Mr. Pinn, I decided I did not like anyone in this entire school including myself.

His class was History of foreign arts. He gave a brief introduction I forced myself to pretend I was invested in so the others wouldn't notice I saw them staring at me. All of them, little glances.

It was a repetition of that four more times until lunch. The teachers asked my name but they all knew, everyone knew my face and who my father was.

By lunch I knew I'd be approached and propositioned by some group. I wasn't in a hurry to be an outcast but I'd rather die then be popular, the cliche popular like in the movies I saw. I doubted it was like that in reality but 8 years of homeschooling made me uncertain.

As I made my way to the lunch room people tried to wave at me in the hall. I pretended I couldn't see them. How long would that last? How long before I was a bitch for not waving back? Why can't I just wave back?

I sat at an empty table and sat. Trying to be inconspicuous, trying not to look like a loner but also not like anyone someone would want to approach and try to be friends with.

A girl sat in front of me, eyes bright and engaged in a conversation that hadn't yet started.

"I absolutely love your mom's music," she was short and thin, what made me nervous was the fact she was pretty. Not hidden beauty bookworm pretty, but lipgloss high spirit I know I'm pretty pretty.

Just as I suspected two more girls sat next to the first one in seconds. Because of course, when your that type of pretty you're popular.

"Thanks," was thanks the right response? What was I thanking her for? The compliment? She was complimenting my dead mom, not me.

"I know a lot of people don't like that kind of Jazz but I do, I'm a singing major so she's a great role model,"

"I wouldn't know. I've never played her stuff," the girl went silent at that. I guess she was expecting I'd be obsessed with my mom's music. I made it awkward with my blunt tone.

"...I'm Jessy,"

"I'm Sonata," Jessy seemed nice, but I didn't want friends because of who my dad was.

The girls looked kind of board in few moments. I don't know what they expected of me but I din't meet up to their expectations. The got up and went to another table after a few pleasantries were exchanged.

I couldn't stop the running of my head, couldn't stop the feeling I was going to faint, or vomit or scream. The some catastrophic event was going to happen to me. I was being dramatic and mean and scared, but those traits rarely failed me. So I sat and I analysed my surrounding like a hawk.

It was the last ten minutes of lunch the four boys sat at my table. They should be glad they waited this long, I was too tired to be hostile.

"I'm guessing you're not the social type?" Alex joked.

"Did you even go get lunch?"

"What part of leave me alone didn't you get?"

"The part where we can do whatever we want," Rue was the only one out of the group that seemed disinterested. He sat to my far right staring off with a bored expression.

"Oh fuck you guys. I'm too tired for his rich boy teen angst bullshit,"

"Yeah because you're a bundle of sunshine and rainbows," Rue shot back.

Mark leaned onto Alex smiling at me oddly, "You're more angry than I remember. Do you think she got more angry since this morning?" the twins nodded eagerly, mocking me.

"Stop being pricks guys," Alex dug into his pocket, pulling out a cloth and handing it to her. It was a handkerchief, with a sewn emblem of that same treble clef with an A. The Albon crest.

"You dropped this,"

"I don't want it,"

"Everyone already knows who your dad is, no harm in wearing it with pride,"

I stared at the stitch, hands clasping the rag with vigor. "I know that...but,"

But I didn't want to be proud of him. But I didn't want people asking me questions or wanting to come over my house. I din't want to be like my mom, playing her role for my dads benefit.

"Are you not talented?"

I looked up at Rue's question, a bit stunned. "What?"

That angry little fuck spoke again, "Did you didn't even audition to get in?"

Another assumption, another conclusion, another guess about who I was. And he had guessed right but somehow still so wrong .

It wasn't said like a question so I didn't answer. I try to smile but my expressions malfunctioned and suddenly I was crying. Suddenly before any of them could speak, or see my tears, or laugh at my pain I stood. And I walked with as much dignity as I was capable of, out the lunchroom.

I wasn't as skilled as my mother when it came to honing emotion. She was a master of the mask, an expert in internal screaming and external silence. I was not as composed in the slightest. Once one tear fell my body turned hot, everything seemed to swell until I couldn't function until I could get it all out.

I don't remember leaving school. But I remember sitting on my bed sobbing and afraid because I knew a housekeeper would call my father and tell him. I don't remember preparing myself. But I remember waiting for three o-clock to come and for him to be home fearing for his fist.

And it came, he came. I don't remember the crying or what he said. But I remember the white hot pain and how the catastrophic event I prophesied came to fruition with a vengeance.