//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Refrain // by NTSTS //------------------------------// “Hi-ya!” Minuette’s presence at lunch had become a daily ritual. After my first refusal of her attempt at friendliness, she had returned seemingly unrebuked and greeted me with the same cheerful enthusiasm every lunch. After the third or fourth day, I stopped bothering to shoo her away. She bounced on the bench as she sat down next to me. “Hello,” I said. “How’s ol’ ‘Tavi doin’ today?” she asked, teeth bright. “Fine,” I said. I took the day’s sandwich out of my lunchbox and looked at it as though it might turn into something more appetizing if I stared hard enough. “So what’s new? Anything exciting going on? Learn any cool new songs?” “Not really.” I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed, clenching my teeth as I attempted to stomach the disgusting combination of bland taste and slimy texture. For some reason, the words struck me then, and the only way to get them out seemed to be to speak them. “It was my birthday yesterday,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. Minuette’s face lit up like I’d just surprised her with a winning lottery ticket. For the first time, her smile lapsed in favour of astonishment. “Wow, really? That’s awesome! Did you get anything cool?” I thought back to the song book, now stained with wine and crumpled in the middle. “No,” I said, taking another bite of my sandwich. “Aw, that’s a bummer.” She sat for a moment, until her face shifted abruptly, like a light-bulb had gone off. “Hey, wait a minute. Hold on, okay? Just stay right here.” And with no further warning, she ran out of the room, leaving me at the table by myself, with my sandwich. I had a feeling she’d come back, though. After a few minutes, I was proven right. She came bounding back over to my table, beaming as wide as she ever had, holding something in her mouth. Something silver, which she dropped on the table as she returned. “Here,” she said, grinning. “Happy birthday!” I took a closer look at the thing she had dropped. It was a piece of jewellery. A necklace, with some kind of pendant hanging on the end. A symbol. A— “I made it for metal-working class. I dunno why I thought a treble clef would be fun. I guess you kinda inspired me!” I picked up the necklace and held it in my hooves under the fluorescent overhead lighting. Minuette smiled at me. “I... I can’t take this,” I said, shoving the necklace back to her. Let alone the fact that I’d never received a birthday gift from anyone other than my mother, this was something she’d clearly put a lot of work into. I already felt bad enough for forcing her to talk to me in the first place. “Go on,” she said, shoving my hooves back. “I insist! It’s not exactly a ‘cool thing’, but now at least you can say you got something kinda neat for your birthday.” The necklace felt heavy in my hooves as I pulled it closer. The clasp on the back came undone without much effort. Slowly, as though someone other than me was moving my hooves, I raised the clasp behind my head and snapped it into place. I let go of the necklace and it fell across my neck, a mark to match the one on my side, but this time in silver. “It looks really good on you! Ooh, hold on...” Minuette rifled in her bag and pulled out a mirror. Looking into it, I’m not sure I recognized the pony on the other side. Was that really what I looked like? My face was so sullen, and my eyes were dark. The only thing that looked alive about me was the silver symbol around my neck. It took me a few seconds to realize I was crying. Minuette seemed to notice around the same time, at which point she pulled the mirror away and shed her smile for concern. “Ohmigosh, are you okay? I’m sorry! If you don’t like it I can take it back.” “No, no no no... It’s... it’s fine, really.” I waved my hoof in the air at her, my best attempt to convince her I was okay. She kept her lips pursed as I wiped the tears off my cheek, sniffling as I pulled my hoof away. “It’s actually... it’s beautiful, I think. Thank you, so much.” “Don’t mention it.” She put her hoof on my shoulder and rubbed it in a reassuring kind of way. The rest of the day, I think I might have gotten away with a smile or two. I was almost skipping when I came home that day. Silly that something so simple could make me feel so different—but somehow, it did. I walked in the front door smiling, which my mother most certainly took note of. “Hello dear. How was school—my goodness! That’s quite the ornament you have there,” she said, pointing to my necklace. I held it up with a hoof and smiled at her. “Thanks,” I said. “A friend made it for me. For my birthday.” “A friend? My goodness dear, I’m so glad to hear that! And here I was thinking you were going to get out of school without making any really great connections.” I set my books and backpack down in the kitchen and went over the sink to get a glass of water. I think I was humming as I did it. “So what’s this friend’s name, hmm? What are they like? Do they have any hobbies or interests?” “Her name’s Minuette,” I said, taking a long drink of water and finishing it with an ‘ah.’ “And she says she made this in metal work, so I guess that’s something she’s good at. She says she used to play the piano too.” “Used to?” My mother stood up from her chair at that point, following me with her eyes as I walked to the other side of the room. “With a name like that, you’d certainly assume she’s set on a path to the conservatory. And what was this you said... metalworking? Is she from a family of labourers?” I rolled my eyes and pulled my practice books out of my bag. “I don’t know, Mother. She’s just a friend. I don’t know her life’s story.” I zipped up my backpack and headed to the music room, folio in hoof as I went towards the piano. Mother leaned on the door as I took up my seat at the bench. It was a position I remembered. “One should always take care to know something about one’s friends. If nothing else, to make sure you’re associating with the right type of pony. Are you sure she’s not headed for a career in the arts? You can never be too careful around other musicians at this age. All those scholarships up for grabs, she may well try to sabotage you.” The tone that had warranted an eyeroll was quickly precipitating into something more sinister. I stood up from the piano and made to usher my mother out of the room. “I don’t believe she’s doing any such thing, Mother. She’s lovely and cheerful, and she seems to actually want to talk to me.” “Well that’s how they start,” my mother said, forcing her hoof out and keeping herself in the doorway. “They butter you up, pretend that everything is nice and cordial, and then stab you in the back when you least expect it.” “Mother, you’re being paranoid. Minuette is a fine pony. I have no doubt her intentions are earnest.” “You say that now,” Mother said. “But what happens when you’re all set for college and she’s there to badmouth you to the board of directors? When she’s pulling you out of the house at all hours to prevent you from practicing? Dear, I don’t like this affair one bit. I think you should cut off ties with this... Minuette.” I think my mouth literally fell open in shock at that point. There was no way, after an entire life of almost monastic solitude, that Mother could find anything reasonable to say against me having a friend. Which meant she wasn’t being reasonable. Which meant she was being crazy. Which likely meant that, for the first time in my life, I had found another pony who she was sure would steal me away from her, and from my music, her music, and everything she wanted me to be. “That’s insane, Mother,” I said, not as firmly as I wanted. “I’m not going to cut off ties with Minuette. We’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and already you want me to stop speaking to her?” “Aha!” My mother held up a hoof in example. “That’s exactly it, you see. You’ve known her for less than a month; how do you have any idea what her intentions might be? Now honestly, Octavia, you know I’m only looking out for you, and I really think it would be in your best interest to just tell her politely to—” “When have you ever had what’s in my best interest in mind?” The sentence flew out of my mouth like a dagger, and I could see my mother’s eyes widen as it impacted. I went on before she had a chance to collect her riposte. “All my life, I’ve been doing things because you wanted me to. School, music; the whole reason I’m playing this Goddess-forsaken instrument every day is to make you happy.” My mother shook her head, disbelief resonating from her. “That’s nonsense, Octavia,” she said. “You love playing the piano.” “No! I don’t! I hate it!” Something twanged inside me, loud and hollow sounding, and I went back to the piano, brandishing a hoof at it with a fire in my eyes. “This whole stupid instrument—I hate it more than anything! I hate you for making me play it every day! When all the other children had friends, and families, and interests and social lives and lives period, Mother, I was stuck inside playing this awful, miserable thing. All for you.” As much as I wanted that to be it, for the fervor of my sudden confession to finally knock an ounce of sense into my mother, I think she was too gone for that. The look in her eyes was more pity than contempt. “Dear, this ‘Minuette’ has obviously been telling you awful things, convincing you of such horrible lies. Imagine, you not enjoying playing the piano! I’m making a decision for your own good then. There will be no more seeing her, end of story.” The words left me at that point. I screamed, louder than I’ve ever screamed, because there was nothing else I could do to let out the feeling inside me that wanted to explode. I threw my hoof out, and I know it struck the piano because all the strings rang out at once, followed by a dissonant look on my mother’s face to match. “No! You cannot! I refuse to stop being her friend!” “Well, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter, dear. Either you cut this venomous viper of a false friend out of your life and save yourself from her ruining your lifelong ambition, or I’ll do the sensible thing and withdraw you from school. I’m sure you’ll see which is the more reasonable choice.” Never, in all my years with her—in all the miserable birthdays, in all the nights I came home to her drunk, passed out, covered in cigarette smoke, cooking a meal that was more rubbish than nutrition, loathing every second of her for making me sit down at that piano and play—did I hate my mother more than in that instant. I hated her because I realized, at that moment, that she had every card. There was no life for me to live but the one she wanted me to. A hundred possibilities spun through my head—of running away, dropping out of school, living on the street, begging Minuette to take me in, going on a search for my father, or someone to give me a home and let me return to school, wherever they might be; even hurting her, maybe not enough to kill her, but so that I could live out the rest of my life without her there. But the thoughts died as quickly as they came. There was no point to the imagining. In my head, I was certain that there was no point. I started crying. My mouth felt dry. My mother stepped towards me and wrapped a hoof around my back, and I was too dead inside to stop her. “There there,” she said, rubbing her hoof gently along my neck and back. “I know it seems unfair now... but trust me. Once you’re back to your senses, everything will be right as rain, and you can focus on your scholarships and how happy you’ll be performing with a symphony orchestra when you graduate.” I leaned my face into my mother’s shoulder and sobbed. And all the while she held me. There there. There there. I gave Minuette her necklace back the next day. I knew that if I spoke to her for more than a minute, it would be too hard, so I simply held it to her in my hooves and said, “I’m sorry. We can’t be friends. Please don’t talk to me anymore.” And that was that. I walked away from her in the hall, heading to the bathroom to find a stall to wring out my tears. And she never spoke to me again, though I still caught her glancing over to me when we passed in the halls. It stopped hurting after a few months, which was near to graduation anyway. As the end of high school grew closer, my lessons became less frequent, from once a week to once a month, and then less than that. It’s possible that Mother was running out of money, wherever it came from, or that she earnestly believed there was no point in squandering any amount of finance on weekly lessons when I could learn so much by myself now. In some of the last sessions I had, Grace Note remarked repeatedly how impressed he was with my ability, and how surely I must be one of the most talented students he’d ever taught. It made me smile sometimes, but only because it was coming from him. I was practicing one night, the song I made my rounds through every day. The metronome clicking steadily as I rounded the notes so familiar they could have been burned into my skin. C, A. C, A. F, G, C, G— A knock at the door drew my attention from my practice. Visitors were so seldom they may as well have been ghosts, which meant someone knocking at the door was either lost, or there for something fairly important. My mother answered the knock as I stood up from the piano. I watched through the glass door as she greeted the pony there. She nodded a few times, took a letter from him and shook his hoof before sending him on his way. After waiting a minute or two, I opened the door and stepped into the living room. “Who was that?” My mother looked up from her book as though she’d only just remembered I lived in the house. “Hmm? Oh, it was a courier, dear. Just somepony delivering a letter.” “Instead of with the normal post? Was it for one of us?” “Yes, dear, don’t worry.” My mother set down her book and lifted her wineglass, taking a large drink and draining it half to empty. “It was just from the local music establishment.” “You mean Hoof and Sound?” My mother nodded. “What did it say?” “It’s just to inform us that your lessons have been cancelled, that’s all.” I felt something stick in my chest. Though I’d long since given up raising my voice against my mother, I couldn’t help at least a mild desperation from creeping in. “Why? Did you stop paying for them?” My mother turned to me like I’d cursed at her. She set her wine-glass down and scoffed at me in an exaggerated sort of way. “Heaven’s sake, dear, of course not. It’s just your teacher... Mr. Note, something? He’s passed away.” In the background, in the silence, the metronome ticked. A steady tempo. Tick tick. Tick tick. My mother lowered her glass and picked up her book again, wetting her hoof before turning the page. “It’s just as well, in any case. You were getting too good for your lessons anyway. Much more sensible to have you continue to study on your own.” Tick tick. Tick tick. I left the metronome on as I went upstairs to my room. When I got there I looked under my bed, as low to the ground as it was, and after a quick search, found the copy of The Geldingberg Variations Grace Note had given me a few months earlier. I think you’re ready, he’d said. I stared at it for a minutes, then put it back without opening it, and went to bed early. As the end of high school approached, so too did the ‘prom.’ In my mind, an excuse for horny teenage colts and fillies to do what it is horny teenage colts and fillies do best, which is make regrettable decisions with each other in a haze of alcohol and desperation for accomplishment in their last year of public education. Not something I had an interest in, in any case. Nevertheless, somehow some colt at school got it in his head to ask me to go with him. His name was Charlie Coal, and he was an earth pony with an unassuming sort of disposition. He seemed nice enough when he asked—stammering, assuring me he was earnestly interested in me, and didn’t I love music? And oh wouldn’t it be wonderful if I’d play him something sometime, but no really, would I mind, being his date? I feigned that I was flattered and rejected him promptly. But, as my own tongue seemed eager to betray me at every opportunity, I happened to let slip the fact that I had been asked out when I got home that day. Which meant my mother heard it. “Well why didn’t you say yes? You only get one prom, dear.” “But Mother,” I said. “I don’t know this colt from John Stallion. He’s never even spoken to me before. Why would he want to take me out?” “Well, back in my day there was quite a convention for secret admirers. Maybe he’s been lusting after you from afar, stealing up all his courage to finally ask you out.” My face soured at the word ‘lusting.’ “Well, if that’s the case, I’m not sure I want to go out with someone so wishy-washy in any case. Besides, that’s a whole night of preparing for finals I’ll miss.” My mother stood in front of me as I went to walk to my room. She blocked the stairs, standing with both her forehooves outstretched. “Octavia,” she said, her voice grave. “Come now. Surely you can’t mean to miss out on your final year’s dance? You’ll be so busy with perfomance once you graduate, you might not get the chance to meet another stallion for years! And what if this one turns out to be the one? This... Charlie Colt?” “Coal,” I corrected her. “Yes. Dear, I really think you should go. You’ll be missing out, otherwise.” I spoke to Charlie the next day and told him I’d changed my mind, and could he pick me up at seven? The dance was unremarkable. I don’t recall much about it other than it being utterly boring, along with a selection of terrible music. I was in no mood to dance. Charlie was nice and somewhat accommodating, though I could tell my attitude put him off. All in all, the whole thing seemed like a waste of time; me, standing still at the side of the room, him paying me the minimum of interest while he went around and talked to his friends, and to a girl or two. I didn’t mind. It’s not as though I expected my mother to be right about that. She did surprise me in one regard though; when I told her I’d confirmed the date, she rummaged through her closet and unearthed a dress she’d said she’d worn in her youth. And now, of course, she wanted me to wear it. It was in remarkably good condition, unlike everything else we owned: a shimmering purple gown that, much to my chagrin, I had to admit didn’t look terrible on me. Charlie certainly complemented it enough. By the time the dance was over, I was more than ready to go home and dream away the rest of the night, counting steady the days until graduation. Charlie, of course, had other plans. “There’s a party that everypony’s going to now that the dance is over. It’s on the south end. Cosmic’s parents are out of town and he said everypony can come by. Did you wanna come with me?” The ‘no’ was on my lips before my mother’s voice droned into my head. You’ll only have this chance once. What was wrong with him? You’re not going to be young forever. I sighed. “Sure. I’ll go with you.” If he was despondent till then, my agreement lit him up with joy. The two of us departed a good deal behind the rest of the crowd, most of whom were travelling in groups anyway. The way to the party took us right through the middle of town, which I at least recognized enough to know the general direction of. The buildings started to get more familiar as we passed the majority of the commercial district. But, as we neared what I imagine must have been the three-quarters mark, something caught my ear, loud enough to make me stop. Charlie stopped too, after a minute of realizing I wasn’t walking with him. “Hey, Octavia? The party’s this way, come on.” “Shhh. Listen. Do you hear that?” As directed, he held silent for a moment, and the two of us craned our necks, picking out the song caught in the evening breeze. “It’s The Geldingberg Variations... number twenty-five.” I looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. It seemed too crisp to be live. After a few seconds of scanning, I found it. “Hoof and Sound,” I read aloud from the sign on the front. “The music store...” “Yeah, so?” Charlie seemed more impatient than he had when first asking me to go with him. He moved his hoof to pull me along, but I stepped forward, out of his reach. “It’s coming from the loudspeakers. They must be playing it because...” I only got a few more seconds of listening before I felt Charlie’s hoof on my shoulder. “Alright, we listened for a bit. Can we go now? I don’t wanna get there after all the booze is gone.” I pulled away from him again and turned in his direction. “Doesn’t it sound beautiful to you?” “It’s just a song. I can listen to a song any time. Right now, it’s prom, and you said you were gonna come to this party with me.” Charlie made another grab for me with his hoof, which I dodged. “It’s not just any song. This is the variation that... listen, I don’t care. Go to the party without me. I want to stay and listen for a while.” “I can’t believe this.” Charlier shook his head, wandering in a semicircle around to my left side. “I spent all this money on a suit, bought you that dumb corsage, and you’re not even gonna come to the after-party with me? I bet you weren’t even gonna put out, were you?” “Is that the only reason you asked me out? Because you thought you were going to get laid?” “Why else would I ask you out?” Charlie stepped closer to me. I moved to back away, but found myself up against the door of the music store, which rattled behind me as I rested my weight on it. “I mean, come on: a weirdo like you? You’re lucky anyone asked you out in the first place. The least you could do is gimme a hoofie.” “Get away from me.” I made to shove him out of the way, but he grabbed my hoof between his forelegs and pressed himself closer. I tried to pull my hoof away, but he had a good deal more leverage. Within seconds, he’d dragged my hoof down, between his legs, where I could feel something very distinctly underneath his suit. “Let go of me or I’ll scream,” I said, still struggling to pull my hoof away. I pushed on his shoulder with my free foreleg, but found no give as he rubbed my other hoof all over what I knew was his hard-on. “Scream to who? The guy playing the piano over those speakers? Ain’t gonna do you much good. Look, just gimme some sugar and I’ll leave you alone—” “No—” I moved to pull away from him again, suddenly, but he caught me and slammed me against the door. The change of his hooves meant mine was free, but it also meant he was on top of me, both of us on our hindlegs, and his foreleg pressed into my throat. I could feel him rubbing up against me, now on my stomach through my dress, instead of my hoof. “Come on—” I twisted, trying to move to my left. His foreleg pressed down, hard, which made me suddenly realize it was quite difficult to breathe. I tried to struggle in the other direction, but he held me down firmer. I could feel my eyes flutter at the lack of oxygen. He started rubbing himself on me again. Rubbing against my dress. Holding me in place. Every time I tried to move, he’d move with me, locking me against the wall. But I had my hoof free, and enough oxygen to move it. The second I hit him in the head, he let go of my throat, which meant breathing again, which meant I could move to the side. Before he had a chance to collect himself, I reared up on my forelegs and kicked as hard as I could manage. I don’t think that was very hard, because I certainly didn’t hear a crack, but I did feel contact with something, followed by the ‘oof’ of him falling to the ground, stumbling on the street. I turned around to him, breathing heavily. My dress, I could tell, was torn. He looked up at me from the ground. I could see him hanging out of his suit, and a bit of blood coming from his lip. He didn’t say anything else. He just got up and walked away. Variation twenty-six had started playing. I stayed and listened until the reprieve. When I got home, my mother was asleep. I put her bottle of wine away, tucked the dress back into her closet, and went to sleep.