Fraternizing With The Enemy

The second Adam and I arrive at Grandview University for the next practice I scoured the place for any sight of Toby. Over the previous few weeks, he and I had become pretty good friends. Or at least as good of friends as you can be when you only see each other once a week.

I’d gotten there about twenty minutes before we were scheduled to start practice and at five ‘til, I still hadn’t seen him or his friend Geoff. At that point, I decided it would be best to just start setting up for practice and hope to run into him after. I even asked Adam if he’d heard anything from Geoff, seeing as how those two had started to get fairly close as well. He said he was on the lookout for them also. It was weird for them to be late because of their thus far constant earliness, but it wasn’t exactly worrisome either.

It turned out that they were just running late anyways.

We had already started practice when the doors burst open and Toby stormed through them, trumpet and music in hand, an angry look on his face. Geoff was in soon after him, trying to carry that massive tuba as gracefully as possible.

“Sorry, Ms. Karen,” Toby said, annoyance ringing through his voice. “All my fault.”

“Try not to let it happen again boys,” she said nicely enough so that they knew that she wasn’t overly bothered.

I was seated two rows almost in front of Toby, so I heard what not many people were able to. The girl that was sat next to him – Annie maybe? – laughed to herself and leaned towards Toby. “Lover’s quarrel?” she asked mockingly.

“Very funny Amelia, but no,” he answered, obviously even more annoyed than before.

“It’s Amy,” she shot back.

“And I could care less. So shut up; we’ve got a practice to get back to.”

Maybe it was purely coincidence, but it almost seemed like Toby played so much better when he was mad. I’d thought he was a phenomenal musician before, but it was nothing compared to his angry playing. Ms. Karen noticed it too apparently, because after we played our most difficult piece of music, she just put her baton down and laughed.

“Geoff, I don’t know what you did to Toby, but thank you.” Geoff’s face contorted with confusion and she chuckled again. “That’s the best I’ve ever heard him play. He’s obviously one of the musicians who plays better when agitated or angry, so thanks for making him mad tonight.”

A lot of the band laughed at that, and I even saw Toby crack a smile. He seemed to be a little less irritated as the practice went on, and by our last song he was back to playing as normal. We were packing up in the other room and Toby walked right to me as soon he put his trumpet away.

“Hey grumpy-pants, why all the sass?”

“I’ll tell you later; it’s kind of a long story.”

“Alright then,” I shrugged, turning back to my instruments, since they still needed to be put in their cases.

Toby sat down on the floor next to me and put his fists in his lap. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t help but notice how deflated he looked. His eyes were kind of dull and gray instead of their usual bright brown; his skin was on the verge of being sallow; and I’d only ever seen him smile once tonight, when it’s usually hard to make him frown. Even his hair looked sort of deflated; kind of like he gave up half way through trying to style it.

Both of us were pretty silent while I put my flute and piccolo away, but I was waiting for him to speak up first anyways. When I finished, I just looked over at him kind of expectantly, hoping he would finally open up.

“So did you drive or did Adam?” was the first thing out of his mouth in over fifteen minutes.

“Well Adam’s still fifteen, and I turned sixteen just in time for Grandview to start, so I drive every time.”

“Would you be able to give me a ride home tonight? I know it’s out of your way, but I’d really appreciate it.”

“He really screwed up big time, didn’t he?” I laughed.

“Yeah,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Let’s put it that way.”

“Of course I can take you home. That’s not a big deal. You’ll just have to give me some directions.”

“Okay awesome. Thank you so much, Caiden.” A smile came across his face for only the second time that night, and that’s when I really realized how bad Geoff must have messed things up between them.

“You’re welcome Toby,” I said sincerely. “Anything to help get that fantastic smile of yours back on your face. It’s weird seeing you without it, honestly.”

“Oh stop it,” he chuckled, red creeping up to his cheeks.

“Alright, let’s go find Adam so we can go,” I said, getting up from the floor and grabbing my cases. Toby pushed himself off the floor and picked up his trumpet case, sticking close to me as we walked towards the French horns.

Adam had to borrow a French horn form Grandview, just like three other horn players, because his family didn’t have the money to buy one for him. They’ve been saving up for one for a couple of years now and were close to having enough, but in the meantime, he still had to borrow. That meant that he didn’t have an instrument to lug back and forth to practices because it had to stay at Grandview.

Usually Adam hung around the horn cubbies talking to the other kids in his section for a while, or was by the tuba cubbies talking to Geoff, but we couldn’t find either of them anywhere. I pulled out my phone to call him and realized that he’d already left me a text message. left w/ Geoff. u &toby looked rly unapproachable. we figured ud give him a ride home. see ya later.

“Apparently we were unapproachable, so they left already.”

“Good. I didn’t want to have to deal with Dingle Douche anyways,” Toby grumbled. It was quite obvious by then that he needed somebody to talk to and to just be there for him, and I was always up to listening when needed.

“Come on, let’s go so you can tell me what happened.” I nodded, pulling my car keys out of my pocket and walking towards the door to the parking lot.

My car stuck out like a sore thumb – at least at Grandview. The car itself was a middle of the line, silver, compact car; definitely a starter car. What made it so obviously mine was the window paint covering the back windshield and all four side windows. Because our drum majors know how stuffy and strict our marching practices can get, they decided to deck out every band member’s car in spirit like words and phrases for the first game of the year. I simply hadn’t gotten around to cleaning off all of the paint yet, though I certainly planned to.

“Go Bears! We’ll teach those lions how to really roar!” Toby read out loud as he walked around the back of the car. He stood by the passenger’s door, waiting for me to unlock it. “Wow. That’s clever.”

“I didn’t make it up,” I smiled, twisting the key on my door. “I’m merely the victim of a paint pen attack.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “I can see that.”

“Alright, so you can just throw your trumpet in the back seat if you want,” I said, doing the same to my flute and piccolo.

He placed his case in the back as well, took a seat, and said, “Thanks again for taking me home.”

“No problem, Toby. I wouldn’t want you to have to deal with Geoff if he made you this pissed off. That wouldn’t be cool at all, and I wouldn’t want it if it were me.”

“Thanks for understanding,” he said, sighing.

“What exactly did he do, though?” I asked, honestly very curious.

“Well, about that,” he started hesitantly. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t want to stay at my house for a bit? I know it’s a school night and everything, so I understand if you can’t. It’s just that I’d feel a lot more comfortable talking about this when you’re not driving.”

“I think that’s a great idea, Toby,” I nodded, looking at him across the car. “Now which way?”