The Violinist

She sat in her cold, stiff, hard backed chair, her wooden bow resting on the scratched table before her. She was pale, shaking with anger and unshed tears. The old violin was in her lap; her neck twisted around it so the pegs dug into the nape of her neck. She sighed and her eyes brimmed with tears. One hand, small and petite, ran down the edge of the violin, fingering the f-holes, the bridge, the strings. She loved the old violin. It was her constant companion. Her friends didn't see how she could spend so much time practicing it or how she could be in school orchestra and two out-of-school orchestras. To them, such commitment was impossible.
Finally she could hold back the tears no longer. The salty drops fell from her long lashes onto the old violin, streaking down it. She didn't even move to wipe them off; she just let them fall, one by one.
Then she sat up straight, her shoulders thrown back, her eyes shining. "It's just you and me now," she whispered to the instrument on her lap. A smile flitted across her face and she put her violin up, lifted her bow and began to play.
The first lilting notes of Pachabel's Canon in D wandered through the empty house, looking for someone to hear them. They danced and twirled, parading themselves around. Yet nobody came.
She didn't care, she was just glad that she had her violin, no matter what her so-called friends said. The violin was her life, her friend, her lover. She was the violinist, but only in her own eyes, for no others cared to see the beauty within her. She was a flower, the kind that blooms early and stays strong, but this flower wilted for lack of care.