The Music's Captive ***This is Not Based on a True Story***

My name is Melody. Melody Saunders. And I hate music. Okay, I know that was a forceful note to start on. (No pun intended, I promise.) I don’t hate music, I just strongly dislike it. Now, you might be thinking, ‘How could someone with Melody as their first name possibly hate music?’. Well, when you’re someone with my background, you would. My mother, Alina Hart-Saunders, is the vocal music director at the local high school, and my father, Casey Saunders, is the band director at the same school. They have tried so many times to try and get me to play music, either learn an instrument, or sing, but I have refused their offers too many times to count. What makes it even worse is the fact that about a year ago, my parents unintentionally found out that my family was somehow related to Lugwig van Beethoven, which made their enthusiasm for music skyrocket. Of course, I was still me, and I still hated music. But, I love art in every way possible. From a young age, I drew all over everything. What started as a cute little three year old drawing scribbles with crayons on enormous white walls of my bedroom soon turned into intricate flowers and faces drawn with Sharpies and acrylic paint. The walls of my room were covered in little doodles, complex drawings or paintings of people and scenes from nature, and faint scribbles from my 3 year old self. And I did all of that without music. Of course, I’m not totally against music, or I’m not going to run out of a room that has music playing, but for some reason I still hate it. Or, I did, up until the accident. I haven’t been the same since. 

From age fifteen to age eighteen, I went to the same high school that my parents taught at, and for the most part, I had fun. I had three absolutely amazing friends who I had met in my painting class my freshman year of high school. Daisy was the picture perfect teenage girl. She had beautiful long and curly blonde hair, and perfectly straight teeth. She had purple tortoise shell glasses that everyone always complimented on, and for some reason, she had the most amazing fashion sense and always wore the cutest outfits to school. Asher was the quietest friend in our friend group of four people. He barely talked to people that he wasn’t friends with, but in our friend group he was always the one that was there for everyone if we weren’t having a great day. And then there’s Danni. Why he’s friends with us, I have no idea. Danni is this popular sporty guy who’s the biggest nerd at the same time. He is loved by literally everyone, but everyone is always confused about why he’s friends with a bunch of art nerds. Anyway, high school was a blast. I was always in my own tiny world of art and friends. One weekend, my friends and I would be at an art gallery all day and then go out to eat afterward, and then the weekend after that, we would be at all day. Every year of high school was incredible, and I was doing great in all my classes. Up until senior year. 

Senior year of high school was rough. 3 days after my eighteenth birthday, two weeks into my last year of high school, both of my parents died in a car accident. A semi-truck driver had fallen asleep while driving, and went over the median, crashing into my parents. Both of them had been pronounced dead at the scene, and the driver only had a mild concussion and a few bruises and cuts from broken glass. The week after I had gotten the notification, I only left my room to use the bathroom, and occasionally eat a bowl of ramen noodles. Day after day, I sat in my room, either crying, drawing, or painting. And then about the third day after they died, I noticed how silent it was in the house. Without my dad practicing his clarinet, oboe, or trumpet, and without my mom singing or playing piano, the house was dead silent. And for the first time since I discovered my hatred for music, I realized how much I hated the silence.

Eight days after my parents died, I got the first, “Oh my gosh, I heard about your parents, I’m so sorry.” message by DM on Instagram from Michaela, my desk partner in my English, History, and Math class. After that message, I logged out of Instagram, because I didn’t want to be reminded of it anymore. Instead, for the first time ever, I went and logged into YouTube, and found a playlist of sad songs. Then I sat and cried along to the music for three hours after that, and eventually fell asleep. 

Two months after the accident, I finally felt good enough to go back to school. My aunt Clara had moved in with me and started paying for the house, and made sure that I had enough food and entertainment. When I got back to school, nothing was the same. Everyone was treating me like a was a fragile child, when all I wanted was for someone to talk to me. The first one of my friends that I saw on the day I went back was Asher. And, to be completely honest, I wasn't expecting anyone else. When I walked up to school that morning, I felt like absolute shit. I hadn’t bothered to put on makeup that morning, knowing that with my “fragile” condition, it would’ve ended up all smeared by the end of first period anyway. The minute Asher saw me, he came running towards me and wrapped me up in one of his amazing hugs, that makes you forget the world around you. I don’t remember what he said to me that morning, in fact, I don’t really remember much from that school year, except for the fact that by the end of the year, my only true friend was him.

Five years have passed now since the accident. Asher is still one of my closest friends, and even though he has a girlfriend, we still make time to go to art galleries on the weekends and go out to dinner afterward. Occasionally, we see Daisy and Danni at the galleries, and I’m pretty sure that they’re dating now. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, because they were so close during high school. I bought the house that my parents used to own, and I still paint and draw all over the walls of my old bedroom, and believe it or not, I am an Art Teacher during the school year, and an Art/Music Therapist during the summers. Music is now a huge part of my life, and during college, I took up piano lessons, which I am still diligently taking. I miss my parents so much every day, but every night I am reminded of them, as I fall asleep listening to music. Sadly, they aren’t alive to see how much I love music now. But, I wish they could’ve known before they died that music does change lives. Whether they ever noticed it in their teaching of music every day or not, does not matter. But what I know is that music indeed changed mine.