I Know It's Hard Sometimes

Jake perched himself on the side of a desk, his acoustic guitar resting on one knee and neck in his left hand. It was his most precious possession, one of the only belongings he owned before the island. He remembered saving up for it when he was nine, hiding eack weeks pocket money under his mattress so that it did not get stolen by the grubby fingers of the care kids he lived with. In his care home, there was no such thing as privacy or property; people wandered in and took what they wanted.

Sitting there, he began to tune his guitar, twisting the knobs until each string sounded correct. Once each one sounded as though they were perfectly in tune, he bagan to strum some chords. His preferred music style was pop, but slowed down slightly. Music was his escape. Escape from people, from school, from life in general. It was the only time that he felt like nothing around him mattered.

He never performed for anyone, though. His nerves always got the better of him, imagining the critisisms and judgmental comments from people. That was his main flaw - he cared too much about what people thought about him. There wasn't even any need to perform in front of a teacher as his orphanage would never pay out for lessons. So everything he learnt: he learnt from the internet, printing off chords and sheet music at school.

Once satisfied with the way it sounded, he bagan to strum the tune of Ride by TWENTY ØNE PILØTS at a slower pace than normal, singing the vocals with it.

@ReD

He was mid-bridge when he heard the door to the classroom open. Noticing someone had walked in, Jake suddenly stopped and cleared his throut, embarrassed. He rubbed his nose - it was a nervous thing - and looked down, avoiding eye contact. Instead of responding to what the guy said, he just sort of gave a closed lip, half smile.

After the guy complimented his music, Jake became really embarrassed, blushing. He felt like this guy was taking the mick or being sarcastic, though his feelings didn't seem that way. "Erm ... thanks," was all he said.

Changing the subject, he asked, "Was there something you were looking for?"

"Erm ... I don't know where they keep them," he responded. Jake didn't know the technical music terms for anything, seen as though he was never actually taught, he worked off sound. He played his guitar that often that he just knew which note was which. 'Drop D' sounded as though it was a D string that was too low, maybe? He wasn't too sure. Despite this, he still offered to help him. "I can tune it if ya like?"

"Of course," he answered. Jake liked to help out if he could; well, when he could be bothered. If the person was nice to him, he was nice in return. Placing his guitar on the desk, he walked over to Kaz. "Jake. Nice to meet ya." The guy seemed nice enough, he didn't seem to have any violent emotions towards Jake. He couldn't help but sense other peoples emotions sometimes. If he wanted to know a specific emotion, he would have to focus, but a casual conversation like this: there was a faint sensation.

He he took the guitar from kaz and fiddled with the tightness of each string, playing them one at a time to make sure they sounded correct. After all the strings sounded in tune, he handed the guitar back with a closed mouth smile.

"Like seven years now, I think." He decided not to bring up the fact that he had never had lessons, even if it would offer a reason to why he thought he was crap at it. To him, he sounded decent but there was always that voice in the back of his mind, putting him down.
"You been playin' long?" he asked.

Jake laughed at the question. It was kind of obvious sinse he was actually in a classroom but he wasn't the type to make fun of people, unless it was as a joke. "Yeah. I've been here about-" He counts on his fingers, "like, three months. Just over. You been here long? The island, I mean. I know you haven't been in the room long." He was starting to ramble nonesense so he thought it best to just stop speaking.