William nodded, though he knew she couldn’t see him. He felt a spark of anger—he apologized, what more did she want?—but he immediately squashed it down. Not now. Not again.
He didn’t say anything else. There wasn’t anything else that was needed to be said. He simply walked to the bathroom to get the medicine.
At his silence and then the sound of him walking away, Amber slipped silently back into her room. She laid down in her bed, her laptop placed at the foot of it, and stared up at the ceiling. After a moment, she closed her eyes with a sigh.
This man was as confusing to her as chemistry was. Meaning, she didn't understand him one bit. With Caroline he was someone different entirely from who he was with anyone else. It was the strangest thing…
Two days. It had been two days that William and Amber had been avoiding each other. William because he felt guilt clawing at him, and Amber because… William assumed it was because of fear. He didn’t blame her. Even Caroline feared him, and she knew what was wrong with him. She’d always known.
“Okay, students, today we’re going to do something simple,” Mrs. Brightly said, clasping her hands together. “I’m not going to grade you on it, but I want to know your skills with instruments. Whatever you have in mind, you can play it.”
William looked up, but he wasn’t interested.
“You can choose whichever instruments you want to play,” she continued. “Anyway, I’ll first call Charlie. Come, child.”
Amber only half-listened to the other students playing their music as she sat at her desk and doodled in her notebook. There really wasn't any reason for her to, but she should have been paying closer attention to what was being said because Professor Brightly had to call her name three times before she finally noticed.
"Oh. Sorry, Professor. Okay… I'll just, uh…" she mumbled as she stood and crossed the room to the piano.
She ran her fingers across the keys when she sat down, and old habit and anxious tic. After a moment of thought, she started playing a cover of Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift.
William’s eyes never left Amber as she began to play. He had never been fond of Taylor Swift’s music, but he didn’t mind them. Hearing Amber play it… it was soothing, to say the least.
When Amber played, William noticed, she seemed to get lost into the music. Cheesy it might sound, but it was always like she and the music were becoming one. He liked that attitude.
He immediately dispelled the thought.
“Wonderful,” the teacher breathed out. “That was beautiful, Amber.”
Amber have the professor a small smile and a nod as she stood. "Thank you," she said softly before making her way back to her seat.
The teacher looked around, smiling when her eyes landed on William.
“William, go on,” she prompted him and the male stood up with a sigh, walking past Amber without sparing her a glance. His eyes flickered towards the violin on the side before he shook his head and instead made his way towards the piano. He hadn’t played that in a while, ever since he moved into the dorms.
Taking his seat, he took a deep breath, setting his fingers on the keys. What should he play? Several ideas floating in his mind before grabbing one.
His fingers began to move, creating the melody for Never Again by Breaking Benjamin.
(https://youtu.be/DeKF33bbF-U the piano cover! I love this song. Especially its original.)
(https://youtu.be/KmnkffEM0fY this is the original song.)
Amber hadn't been looking up when William went up. So when he started to play the piano, she was a bit surprised. She would have thought he'd pick the violin.
Slowly, she looked up at him, her eyes widened slightly. He was like a musical protege, with all of the instruments he could play. If he played each of them this well, it was no wonder he was going into music…
The lyrics flowed through William’s mind as he played, eyes closed, relief coursing through him. Music certainly was the best therapy for him. When he played, everything vanished behind a viel. He had nothing to worry about during those few minutes.
When he was done, everything came back down. He was punched back into reality—where nothing made sense and everything was red. Where he knew he couldn’t fit in because he was unfit. Because he was not normal.
He stood up from his stool, the teacher’s praises filling his ears. He merely nodded, looking ahead as he walked back to his seat. He played something sensitive.
Beautiful anger, breaking the pattern…
He shook his head. Beautiful anger, indeed. The teacher announced the next student and the student after that, but William barely paid any attention. He would go home, look at the lists his father had sent him, and then decide what he wanted to do. Go back to his lessons, or keep up his charade.
William had done well. Excellent, in fact. And it bothered Amber that she couldn't hate it. If she could hate it, she could find another thing to pile into her "not forgiving William" stack. The problem was, she had really enjoyed his music…
When school was over, William went to practice. It wasn’t needed, because there was no practice today, but he needed to get things off of his chest. He could be peaceful through music, but he needed to show his aggression through sports.
William fired three-points after each shot, but after a while, he put away all of the balls and walked back to the dorm. He hoped Amber wasn’t there. He didn’t see her, but the light in her room was turned on.
He went into his room and immediately got out the list his father sent him, eyes skimming through everything. He’d even sent him his previous reports. His father… really wanted him to go back, didn’t he? Though both males loved each other, William and him always had gotten into arguments. His parents never blamed him for anything that broke.
He walked outside, still reading it before he set it aside to drink water, and when he entered his room again, he had forgotten to bring it with him.
Amber checked the time and realized she should probably start making dinner. It was getting close to that time, and she knew it would take a while to cook.
She tore herself from her comfortable bed, set her homework aside, and made her way out of her room. She glanced into the living room and noticed a stack of papers on the table. Curious as always, she wondered what they were for and walked over to look at them.
When she picked them up, they looked almost like medical records… But they were talking about "sessions" and "therapy" so it couldn't be a normal doctor. And at the top of the paper was William's name…
Wait… Were these… therapy session records? For his anger? So he must have a serious problem, then…
Where was it? William gritted his teeth, looking around the room, running a hand through his hair. Where did he put those papers?
Then he froze.
No. He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have left them in the living room. Not where— he shook his head. Hopefully Amber was still coped up in her room. Hopefully she had enough sense not to look through things that didn’t belong to her.
But when he opened the door to his room, he was proven wrong again. She really didn’t have any sense.
“Why do you always go through things that are not your business?”
Frick.
He was out. Of course he was. She shouldn’t have looked through them in the first place. What had come over her to do so?
Amber dropped the papers on the table and wrapped her arms around herself. She slowly turned to face William, a flicker of fear crossing her features before she banished it. She couldn’t let him know she was afraid of him. Not even if she though he would hurt her.
William let in a deep, shaky breath, leaning against the doorframe, trying to control the bubbling anger inside of him.
She found out. What he’d been trying to hide since so long, she found out. His mistake. He should have been more careful.
“Ah…” he breathed out, eyes blazing. “You really are an annoying person, aren’t you? You set up rules and then continuously break them. You come into my room twice, one on the basis for collecting trash and the second for wanting to help despite my warnings. And then you look at things that are none of your business. You piss me off so much, Blue.”
Amber simply looked at him as he spoke, the gaze of her widened eyes steady. What could she say? He was right. She did break the rules. Continuously. He had every reason to be mad at her.
So she just shrugged and looked away, her expression unreadable. “I know. I know I keep breaking the rules, even the ones that I set up. And I can’t say that I’m sorry for that, because I’m not. I’m not sorry that I was cleaning the dorm. I’m not sorry that I’ve brought Jace in here. And I’m not sorry that I wanted to help you when you were sick. What I am sorry for, though, is going through your things. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have just left them on the table where they were.”
William looked over at her, jaw clenched. She wouldn’t look at him. Of course she wouldn’t.
He walked across the room and snatched the papers, taking a few steps back before he paused.
“Well, I suppose you’ll make sure you avoid me now, won’t you? Now that you know what my problem is, you won’t be so stupid enough to stick around,” why were those words so hard to force out? “Listen to your boyfriend, sweetheart, and stay away from me.”
Amber’s gaze shot back to William as he spoke, her eyes narrowing. “Just because you have anger issues doesn’t mean you need to be avoided. I was avoiding you the past few days to sort out my own thoughts and to give you some space. We live together, William. It’s hard to avoid someone like that,” she shot back, her voice low and steady.
William quirked an amused eyebrow, though he couldn’t help but feel a little relieved.
“Aren’t you afraid?” He tilted his head. “You never know when I’m going to lash out. I could hurt you over the littlest of things. People like me should be avoided, so why do you think otherwise? For someone I almost harmed, you sure are taking this lightly.”
“Of course I’m afraid. You almost hit me, William. That’s not something someone can just forget,” Amber clipped. “And I’m not taking this lightly. I just think we should at least be trying to make this work. It’s not even halfway through the year, and we’re always at each other’s throats.”
William chuckled, shaking his head.
“You seriously think we can make this work?” He looked at her in amusement. “Where is your mind right now, Blue? Things can never work with me. I’ll always clash with people and I’ll always be at their throats. This isn’t some sort of a movie where you can tell someone with anger issues that you want to get along with them and they’ll happily oblige.”
Amber looked at him for a moment longer before shaking her head. “No, it’s not. I do know that, thank you. Some people are at least willing to try, though,” she said with a shrug, then proceeded to move around him so she could go back to her room.
That comment struck a nerve.
“I’m sick of trying,” William snarled, clenching his fists, trying to keep himself from lashing out again. “You think you know everything, don’t you? Things will never work out no matter how hard I try because despite all of my efforts, people will still look at me and think of me as a freak. But why do I even bother? People like you will always brush it off as if it’s such a simple thing to control. As if even the thought of this is stupid. But why does that matter, right? There’s nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it, right? Bullshit. Don’t you dare tell me I’ve never tried when that’s what I’ve always done.”
Setting another curious glare towards her, William stalked over to his room and slammed the door shut.
Amber stared at William’s closed door for a moment, somewhat shocked by his words. Of course he was trying, that hadn’t been what she’d meant. She’d just… Well… She’d thought that he just didn’t care about making things work with his dormmate.
With a sigh, she made her way into her own room and laid down on the bed. When was there going to be an open dorm so she could move out?