Chapter 8
Helena
Acouple more days and I think that I’m going to have the hang of this.
The hallways no longer seem too complicated to navigate, and I’m getting lost a hell of a lot less often. After lunch, one of the students actually asked me for help in finding one of their classrooms, and I successfully managed to walk them to class. Which probably isn’t the monumental victory that I’m taking it as… but I’m proud of myself anyway.
Principal Martinez does not appear to be nearly as strict as I expected. He”s given me complete freedom to decorate my classroom and move freely between the auditorium and theclassroom. I”m starting to appreciate the ability to make more decisions for myself, even if they”re as simple as where I want to have class for the day.
To honor the feeling of coming into my own at the school, I decide that I want to change things up a little bit. Instead of keeping things in my small classroom, I’ve decided to have lessons today in the auditorium. The soundproofing in that room needs to be updated, but I love the haunting equality that it provides. It dampens any sounds of voices and instruments much in the way that stone might inside of a cathedral.
Years of walking up and down the stage have warped it slightly. The heavy red velvet drapes on either side have most likely never been properly cleaned, but this is the one room in the entire school where something like that only adds to the ambiance. I”m not sure when the flickering fluorescent lights were replaced, but there”s something charming about the space that I can”t quite put my finger on.
Classes B, E, and Advanced Choir will meet in the Auditorium today.
I posted a note on the door to my classroom and locked it behind me before I pushed my cart full of instruments and materials all of the way down to the theater. The more I’m in the room, the more I think this room might be my favorite in the whole school—hell, in the whole town. The rows of folding bench seats are bolted to the floor like one might find in a baseball stadium. They do nothing to change the sound quality, but it will give my students plenty of spaces to choose from. If nothing else, I can use it to show them how sound changes depending on where you choose to sit inside a theater.
I set the small collection of instruments and chairs up on the center part of the stage. I finish faster than I thought I might, and that leaves me some time to practice. I would be more pleased with the setup if there were any noise-dampening fixtures, or even something like old carpets I could use, but I don’t find anything backstage. The only thing in the changing room is a stage makeup kit likely older than I am and a rack of torn costumes.
It will just have to do.
Unlike the crystal-clear quality of the music room, the notes from my cello seem to echo and bounce off of the walls. It’s like the difference between a shot of vodka and an espresso shot. I pull a chair to the center of the stage and take my seat. I’m careful to position the skirt of my dress carefully so that I can fit my cello between my knees and close my eyes. Mentally, I run down the list of musical pieces that I’ve had memorized since childhood. It doesn’t take long to summon one from the recesses of my mind. I play the notes over in my mind twice before I get into position.
Sliding my bow over the strings of my cello now makes me feel almost dirty. A strange part of me, that I refuse to pick apart, is hoping to look up at any moment and see Daniel standing at the far end of the room. I keep hoping to spy him leaning casually against the doors, like the first time I saw him.
I’m probably only obsessing over him because he’s nothing like the guys I’m leaving behind with Helena. Daniel might be the perfect bridge between my old world and new world if what they are saying about him is true.
If it is… then surely there can’t be any harm in sleeping with him once or twice? I’ve been waffling back and forth about the possibility all morning long. Clearly, fantasies alone aren’t enough to get him fully out of my system in the way that I want. Maybe a distraction like that is exactly what I need to make myself feel like this life as Sofia is going to be the one that sticks.
It might just be because I haven’t gotten laid in such a long time, but I know that I’m going to need to see him again. At the very least, I need to get to know him better.
I haven’t been touched by a man like that since?—
I shut that thought down instantly. It’s still too painful to think about my ordeal.
The lessons pass in a blur.
It”s strange to think that music was the only thing that truly connected me to my mother before she died, and that now I”m passing on that knowledge despite her constant criticism that I wasn”t good enough. At the very least, I”m qualified for this. It”s interesting to see the connections my students make when they realize they can make music themselves.
When I made a mistake, my mother would always yank my instrument from my hands or smack the backs of my hands and knuckles with a metal tuning fork. But I”m not sure why. Not when I find it so simple to be kind to young people.
The revelation is painful, in a way, knowing it’s easy to be kind, and yet my mother still couldn’t manage it and chose against it. I tried for so many years to be better, to play perfectly. I would practice until my fingers bled, and even if the song was completed to technical perfection, she still found it lacking.
I always wondered if she hated me simply because I was a woman.
Perhaps she was simply envious that I was better at some things than she was.
My father seemed to like me more than he did her. That was probably fair. My mother always preferred my brother. Even if he couldn”t play half as well as I could, she”d say he was better. He could completely fail at something and she would still declare him the winner. I had no idea what I could have done to make her hate me so much.
It certainly didn’t do anything to help foster a healthy, happy brother-sister relationship.
Now that I’m older, I wonder if she was simply projecting the feelings that she had about herself onto me. I wonder if she hated herself and saw me as a reflection of her. My father never wanted to handle any issues with me directly for the same reason: I was a daughter, not a son. Not that my brother, Alek, believed me when I told him any of this was going on.
Despite being so close in age, it always felt like we were raised in two entirely different worlds. He was groomed since birth to take over for our father. He was always supposed to be the one to pilot our legacy and wield great influence and power.
Alek never seemed to understand what that meant for him. He never realized how powerful our father was. Perhaps he left because the stress was too much for him. Many people believe he died, but I don”t.
I know that Alek is still alive. He’s still out there somewhere. At least, I assume that he is. Given that we were never close, I didn’t want to run the risk of informing him that I didn’t actually die when the rest of the world thought that I did.
I wouldn’t even know where to look for him.
When it came to me, however, I was told the best I could hope for was marriage to a kind, handsome husband. I was always told that I would be traded off as a tool to gain my father more power and influence. That didn’t guarantee anything about my future husband: old, young, good-hearted, cruel—I had no say. After all, it wouldn’t matter what happened to me in the long run.
I learned the hard way that the only person who was ever going to look out for me in this life was me. Deprived of any real sort of childhood, I learned the skills that would suit me most. Things like manipulation and espionage. I learned the best ways to use my looks to my advantage and how to keep my emotions bottled up so tightly inside of me that nothing could ever hurt me again.
I never let them out except when I”m playing. I let out every negative or sad feeling that had built up inside my chest by moving my fingers over the strings until I am lefthollowed out and empty. It”s usually followed by the best night”s sleep I”ve ever had.
As the last student leaves for the day, I don’t make any effort to hurry out the room. I just want to take a little bit more time for myself here. Here in the quiet of the auditorium, I take a long, solitary moment to stretch out. My joints crack and tension melts from my tired limbs and muscles. I pull my skirt up too high around my thighs to be considered modest in order to fit my cello in closer to my body than is technically correct.
This performance is for me, and for me alone.