It was too much for him; he just couldn't handle all the pressure anymore. He had thought that he could handle a normal life, working a normal job, but it had only been a few months and he felt like his head was going to explode if he looked at another page of numbers.
As Jamie looked at his brief case, it made the need to get away even stronger. That black worn bag, that his father had handed down to him on his first day at the accounting firm, wasn't just a bag. It was a physical representation of the years of disappointment. All those years, where Jamie had just wanted to play his music, but his father wanted him to do math, to become an accountant like him.
Jamie could remember days where his father wouldn't come home until late in the night. Those nights where Jamie had finally master a particularly hard piece of music, and wanted to play for him. But the music bothered his father; he said it made it hard to concentrate, so Jamie would stop. He would go sit with his father and watch him calculate all those numbers, just to spend time with him.
When it came time to go off on his own for university Jamie wanted so badly to impress his father, so he majored in accounting. It was less then two weeks into his first semester and he found himself walking by the music rooms with longing, just wanting to brush his fingers against the ivory keys. He knew he couldn't change his major, his father would never understand; so he minored in music, he was able to make his father happy, and still play.
But when graduation came, he had to choose. His father had found an opening at the firm, and he wanted Jamie to fill it. He thought that if Jamie came to work with him it would finally get rid of all his silly ideas of becoming a professional musician.
He had tried, he really did. He took that worn old brief case; the same one that had been slung over his fathers shoulder, carrying the things he cared about the most, and tried to be like him. He worked hard all day, and when his mother started pushing him to give her grandchildren, he started going out after work. He met some nice girls, even considered bringing some of them home, until the day he walked into the music store.
There she was sitting at the piano, just hitting random keys. She was the most beautiful woman Jamie had ever seen. Her name was Margaret. She worked at her grandparent's music store and played the piano, like him, along with a slew of other instruments.
He started going to the music store every few days, then every other day, until it gradually evolved to him spending all of his free time there, just to see her. Eventually he started carrying more sheet music then math in his briefcase. He was excited to grab that bag everyday, wondering what they would play when he got to the store after work.
It took him weeks, but one day he finally found the courage to invite her to dinner at his parents house. His mother loved Margaret; she thought that Margaret was good for him, that he was happier. But after dinner when Margaret spotted the piano in the corner of the living room she insisted they play something for his parents. The look his father gave him was horrifying.
Once Margaret left the shit hit the fan. His father had thought Jamie had stopped all that music nonsense when he had joined the firm. He said he had to make a choice. There was no room for that kind of thing in his life if he was going to become a responsible adult.
It was too much for him. He couldn't stand his fathers disgust at his music. He left the house as soon as he could, and ran for the music store. As he expected Margaret was there, waiting for him. They didn't say anything; there were no words for what they were both feeling. When he got up to leave Margaret hugged him, and whispered in his ear that she loved him, and that nothing would change that.
Those eight words were what finally pushed him to the right decision. Just eight simple words was what made him pick happiness over acceptance. So he took that brief case, full to the brim of his father's disapproval, and his own rejection, and he left it on his parent's doorstep, to be found in the morning.