You're My Example, Halvo

“You can go get food, you know.” Mr. Botchie's voice startled me, as I was too tangled in my thoughts of moments before when Mint was here, god, she was so.. beautiful.

“I had a big breakfast.” I lied and turned to face him who had a cup of soup in one hand, steam was coming off the top of it, the smell of tomato soup filling my nostrils. It really did smell tasty, but the last time I tried eating, it made me sick to my stomach and ended in it coming back up.

“How's the helping Mint out going?” He asked a smile appearing on his lips.

“Good, actually. One of her biggest problems was that the time signature was wrong.” I replied as soon as I did, the door opened and Mint walked in.

'Take your eyes away from her, look at anything but her. Halvo!' My thoughts screaming at me, as I adverted my eyes back to Botchie, who was looking at me quizzically. She plopped herself down beside me, smiling as she did so.

“Ready to get to work?” She asked softly as I turned around to face the piano, nodding as I did so.

“Yeah, since you have rests from measure one to measure twenty, go ahead and start at measure twenty.” I replied and she nodded.

“Alright.” She said and began to play, it started soft at first and then by the time she got up to measure thirty-seven she got a tad bit louder, as if she was trying to impress me. I smiled at the thought, and continued to scan the music, making sure she wasn't hesitating on anything or messing up in more challenging places. She stopped playing around forty-three, “Ugh.” Her voice was laced with irritation, making me look at her as her face scrunched up in an angered way.

I focused on the measure she stopped at and saw faint notes, barely readable to anyone unless they had super-human x ray vision. I chuckled softly, and took the piece of music off the stand along with one of the warm-up books that was sitting behind it. I snagged her pencil off the stand and started to draw in the notes that were there before, trying to make them as neat as possible, but failing miserably.

“Shit,” I whispered softly, hoping she didn't hear me as I began to erase one of the quarter notes that I had messed up on. She laughed loudly, and I turned and grinned at her, knowing that she had heard me curse anyways.

“Thanks.” She said while taking it from me and placing it back on the stand, as I slipped the pencil back onto the stand, she started to play again, hesitation lacing the notes.

“You're doing very well,” I said and she shook her head.

“Not really, we have to preform this in two weeks, it has to be perfect.” I looked at her in a sort of angry way, angry that she was putting herself down.

“Well, this is the first time I've heard you play it.” I said softly, wiping my now sweaty hands onto the fabric of my pants.

“It might be the last, you never know they might find someone better, they always do this. Bring in someone new, he attends for a day, next day he's gone. Another new guy, same routine. The last one we had, stayed for a year and a half, he got really sick, the doctor told him to quit his job.” She stated, and then began playing again before I could respond.

I closed my mouth, and followed what she was playing on the sheet music. Maybe she was upset because the other guy was her secret lover, best friend or something. I kind of felt as if I shouldn't of taken this job in the first place after she so kindly said this. But to be honest, they seemed desperate when they called me, like I was their last hope. They made it seem like I was more qualified, they said they had interviewed at least four different people and none of them were clearly meant for this job.

The bell rang again, and as the students coming back from lunch flooded through the door, I got up from my place beside Mint. I hoped Mr. Botchie had someone else I could help, because I really did not want to get snapped at by Mint again.