Hey, I have another short story up! The idea came to me from walking home from the bus, and it came from something else, but I'm not going to say that! :P

This story deals with flute parts (first and second) and auditions, but you don't need to know anything about flutes or music or anything really to udnerstand it. Just that at my highschool, we have to flute parts, first and second.

So, I haven't really edited this, however I didn't write it in the mad rush like I usually write things in, and I spell checked it, so hopefully it's managable!

With those things said, I hope you enjoy the story and kindly review!

“It’s going to be different without you,” I said softly to him. We were alone in the band room standing in front of our shared locker. “Who’s going to be the gifted flutist when you leave?”

Smiling in a bittersweet way, he said just as softly as me, looking at our entwined hands, “You will.” He looked into my eyes then, and I could tell that he wasn’t lying, that he wasn’t just trying to reassure me.

I was confused by his words though. “How can I be the gifted flutist? I’m just a sophomore—“ I began.

“Exactly,” he said a bit louder, smiling more fully; smiling at how blind he must have thought I was to my playing. “You’re a sophomore and you’re a first flute and playing it with the ease like it was music for a seventh grader—“

I interrupted him quickly. “So? Samantha Freeman was a first flute—“

“You have no idea how much she struggled. You have no idea how hard she practiced and still had difficulty with it.” He said darkly.

Looking at our hands—mine held tightly in his, as though he wanted to bring me where ever he went—I paused for a moment then said, “Why didn’t anyone challenge her? I’m sure Chrissie could have challenged her easily and taken her part. Why didn’t she?”

I heard him faintly laugh under his breath, then say, “because flutes, we’re to courteous to do something like that. We don’t challenge each other. No one was challenged last year, but I’m sure if we had another audition the seats would be different. Maybe some of us would have made first flute the second time…?”

I smiled then laughed, thinking back to my own disastrous audition all the way back in eighth grade for last year’s part. Would the results have been that much different had we had a more open audition; if Mr. O’Keefe hadn’t taken us to one of the practice rooms and closed the door then seem to glare at me as I played my scales and started the pieces?

Silently, deep inside, I felt that had I played the audition piece in an open room with all the other flutes that I would have been better, that I would have made first flute. And I believed that everyone would do better like that, without Mr. O'Keefe locking you up in a room while you played your scales, looking at every move you made. At least there would be some breathing room and some distance between you and Mr. O’Keefe.

“I think that every flutist here has the potentional to make first flute. You just need to find the right circumstances to test them.”

He looked at me and used both of our hands to move my head so it was facing him. “Yes, but then, who would play second flute? After all, if you have the audition under the same circumstances every year for every player, that would be how you discover the true first flutes for that year.”

“I’m still not a gifted flutist.” I said, trying to bring the conversation back to where it had started. “I still don’t know who’s going to be able to sheet read the piece nearly perfectly every time so the other flutes can follow them. You won’t be here, and Elisa left for college this year.”

“I told you,” he said, inclining his head. “You are.”

Pulling me into a hug, he whispered in my ear, “Do you know who the seventh graders know in the high school band, and not because of high school siblings, or stuff like that. Seventh graders who know one, maybe two people in the high school. Do you know who they’re talking about; who they say is the legendary flutist in the high school, who they admire and want to play like, even though they’ve never heard them play? You. Yeah, they’ve heard of me, but I’m a senior. I’m not a sophomore playing just as well as an advanced senior. You’re going to be the one leading the flute parts. And I’ll be rooting for you every day.”

I nodded, understanding what his words truly meant. The majority of middle schoolers hardly ever interact with the high school band. We were two separate things from two separate schools, simply sharing the same room and conductors. So for a seventh grader, who hadn’t had time to gather really any information even though it was the first Thursday of June, had heard of me was amazing. That they wanted to play like I did…mind blowing. What he had said to me—and I knew it was true because you do not joke about things like that here—would pretty much change everything.

I gently hugged him back and buried my head in his shoulder, enjoying the last day what we would be together during band before he graduated.

Silently, I whispered, “I’m gonna miss you…”

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to let me know in a review or in a private message. Or you could leave a comment on one of my blog entries on my website (it's to livejournal btw). You can comment anonymously on this site and on Livejournal, so please leave your thoughts on this for me!

I would also recommend that if you liked this, try reading some of my other things, such as Black Magic, or even some of my favorites. I'm a harsh reviewer, so I favorite things for a reason :)

Also, I welcome harsh critique. It's the only thing that makes me grow, and even though it looks bad for people read the reviews prior to the story, I still appreciate them as they help me grow as a write.

With that said, kindly drop me a note on your thoughts! It's greatly appreciated and gives me a smile!

So, hopefully you enjoyed this, and if not, I'm terribly sorry but hope for you to tell me what you disliked about it. Thank you again for reading it!

-Lizza (my super fantabulous penname, that was creatd with the help of Paffle_waffle :P)