A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C.G. Drews

Joey’s a pocketful of light in his gloomy existence. He has to love her twice as hard to make up for the sin of hating his mother.

He wants to be invisible. An invisible boy with an invisible song in his head.

No decorations. His family collects bruises and German insults instead of crockery and photo frames.

He didn’t forget. August just – distracted him for a moment. And that’s proof of why he can’t have friends. If he were a piano, all his strings would have snapped.

as much as he pretends to hate music, it’s part of him. It is him.

‘I know, Joey,’ Beck says, soothing. ‘It’s not fair.’ He doesn’t want to do well at the performance. He doesn’t want to impress Jan. He doesn’t want to leave.

Don’t you want to do something to remember that you are a person, not a test score?’ No. Never. He wouldn’t even dare.

He’s piano keys and flinches and crumpled music trapped in his soul.

If you do not say hello, you do not need to say goodbye.’

‘I hate music,’ he says, soft as heartbreak and goodbyes and a thousand kilometres beneath the quiet earth. And he hates that he doesn’t quite mean it. He hates her music – he’s in love with his own.