Disclaimer: I do not own Next to Normal.

Chapter Two

I always took the early bus to school. I practiced piano before and after school, and this was just one of the many days when I thought, And thank god for that. Whatever got me out of the house faster.

On the bus, I sat quietly with my head down, not making eye contact with anyone. For extra measure, I put in earbuds and listened to music; if anyone bothered me, I could pretend not to hear them. It's not that I'm a mean person, I just don't need to be involved in the convoluted dance that is high school social life. I also don't want people to find out just how fucked up my family is. I know most family dynamics have some tone of fucked up to them, but mine absolutely takes the cake.

Anyway, I used to have a small group of friends, but between my mom being cuckoo (though she wasn't nearly as bad then) and the way I often canceled plans due to "family obligations" (meaning my dad was dragging me to family therapy and wouldn't take "no" for an answer), I'd either purposely tried to drive them away, or they'd run away on their own. So I didn't bother with friends anymore. Especially since one of the popular girls decided it'd be funny to befriend me, then humiliate me by making me the butt of some stupid joke. I pretended I didn't care, but ugh, I wanted to erase that incident from my memory. It happened back in junior high, and I still hadn't recovered.

When the bus arrived at school, I shut off my iPod (Mozart's 25th piano concerto—I love Mozart, but seriously, how many piano concertos did the guy need to write?) and was the first one out the doors. Because I was on the early bus, there weren't too many people circulating the building, which is how I liked it. I usually arrived at my classes exactly on time, and I was always the first one to leave when we were dismissed. My entire day was centred around avoiding people and practicing piano. Sometimes I wished for human companionship, but then I began thinking about all the potential problems with that and the longing went away.

Upon my arrival, I immediately went to the practice room I'd reserved. The school secretary didn't even have to ask me when I wanted the room; I wanted it for an hour before school and two hours after, five days a week, always, without fail. On this day, I was working on the piece for the student recital. Sure, it was only September, but there was never enough time for perfecting things. This recital was my opportunity to prove myself; a "talent scout" from Yale University (my dream school) was coming to watch kids play. Of course, anybody who caught their eye would still be required to go through a formal audition, but it was certainly a leg up.

I've always been fascinated by music and the making of it, although god knows where I got that from (Dad has a dusty collection of tapes that I don't think he's listened to in decades, and the only music I've seen Mom interested in is the song that old music box plays). I took up piano in grade five, back when we still lived on Walton Way. An older girl on the street started giving lessons to make some extra money before going to college, and I begged my parents to let me try it. I'd begged them for music lessons before, but there was never enough time for me to practice or Dad to drive me somewhere, or Mom needed peace and quiet, or "it's just not the best idea;" there was an endless slew of excuses.

But finally—and to this day, I still haven't figured out why—I got the answer I wanted. I took piano lessons from this girl for a year, and when I was eleven, I started biking half an hour to the music store for classes and practice sessions. I did this for two years, until we moved. While my parents were building our new house (our old one was mostly destroyed in a fire. I have a picture of the remains, because my dad is one of those obsessive people who documents every moment of life), I was busting my ass to get into high school early, where there was easy access to a piano. While I was still biking to the music store for my lessons, we'd tried renting a piano for me to practice at home, but my mother couldn't stand listening to the repetition or the metronome. So I was stuck going to school to get my piano fix.

To this day, music is like my religion. There was always something soothing about the cold, hard keys, and I loved being able to lose all my baggage for a few hours a day. If I wasn't actively making music, I was listening to it. The sound of Mozart or Debussy prevented silence from creeping in. And sometimes all you needed was an angst-ridden Mahler symphony to drown out all your troubles.

On top of all that, music was my ticket out of this place...

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

...that is, if I could ever get it right.

I leaned on the keyboard with my head in my hands and took some deep breaths. Then I placed my fingers back on the keys and calmed myself down by listing all the reasons I liked the piece and liked to play.

"One:" I said aloud as I played. "Mozart was crazy, but his music's not crazy. There's harmony and logic; you don't hear his doubts, or his debts, or disease.

"Two: If you work hard enough, you can graduate early and get into Yale, and then you're done with all of this shit, and there's nothing your paranoid parents can say.

"Three: Everything else goes away."

So absorbed was I that I didn't hear the practice room door creak open. It wasn't until I caught a glimpse of his hideous plaid, flannel shirt that I stopped.

"Sounds good!" He said with a grin.

I couldn't tell if he was mocking me or not. "I still have this practice room for"—I glanced at the clock—"seven and a half minutes."

The boy nodded. "Yeah. I mean," he added, as if he was trying to sound more sophisticated, "I know. I'm Henry." He held out his hand, obviously expecting me to shake it.

"Natalie." I ignored his offering and stared at him instead.

Henry let his hand fall awkwardly, trying to pretend I hadn't just shot down his friendly greeting. "Yeah," he said again. "I mean, I know."

"It's a little creepy that you know," I said. Why was he still here? I wasn't going to fall for another repeat of the junior high friendship fiasco.

"We've gone to school together for six years."

I let my eyebrows go up. "Really?"

"I usually sit behind you." He sounded a bit discouraged that I clearly hadn't noticed him before.

"That's also creepy." Despite my uninterested appearance, something about the open, enthusiastic nature of this boy intrigued me.

He tried again. "You're in here before school and after."

"Right." I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Seven minutes."

He was already closing the door when I surprised myself by blurting, "You give up way to easily!"

Fuck! Just keep your goddamn mouth shut, Natalie.

That made Henry pause. He stuck his head back into the room. "Um, you're kind of a confusing person."

I chuckled without humour. "You should meet my mother," I responded cryptically.

I put my hands back on the keys and began to play again, hyper-aware that Henry was still there, watching me. When there was exactly two minutes left until first period, I stood up and gathered my belongings.

"Do you play?" I asked Henry as I swept past him and into the hallway.

"Yeah," he said. I wished he'd stop saying that. "But not classical. Jazz."

I wrinkled my nose. Call me a music snob, but I didn't have a lot of respect for anything that couldn't be written down and perfectly replicated. There didn't seem to be much skill to it; anyone could throw together a bunch of notes and call it music. It took talent to write complex melodies with a coherent structure. And I was only interested in things with structure, because nothing good ever came of aimless wandering.

"Well, I disapprove, but maybe you'll convince me otherwise." I surprised myself yet again. "See you later."

As I continued on to my class, I wondered what on earth I was thinking; "convince me otherwise" indeed. It could have been flirting, except for the mostly-bland, mildly-snarky tone.

I rolled my eyes. Silly me. Nothing good could come of this.