Ice (Shooting Stars 2)

"It's not your fault. Jeez. Ice, you can't blame yourself for what those idiots do. I shouldn't have let him yet to me," he said. "but I wouldn't let him say those things about you."

"I know." I said. I wandered if he had any idea his father had been to my house. "Was your father very angry?" I asked,

"Not as any as I expected he would be. He didn't even ask about the cause of the fight and he hasn't said a bad word about you. Ice. I don't mind the days off. I'll work on my music. I'll finish your song, too," he vowed.

"Balwin' ..."

"You'll come over after dinner tomorrow night, won't you? Please? I'll feel like a total idiot if you don't," he explained. "Like it's all been for nothing, a waste."

I smiled to myself.

"Are you sure. Baiwin? It won't stop at school, you know."

"I know, I don't care. Matter of fact," he said, his voice deepening, "I think I'm going to start to enjoy it. They're just jealous, that's all.

"Here, the prettiest girl in the school and the most talented, too, is friends with me, coming to my house," he bragged. "I guess they just don't

understand the power of music as well as we do. right. Ice?"

He waited,

"Right?"

"Right, Balwin," I said.

"Okay. Same time. okay?"

"All right. Balwin," I said.

"I can't think of anyone I would rather get in trouble over than you. Ice," he said. Then he quickly said. "Good night," and hung up.

It was just like before when I felt he had stolen a kiss. It brought a deeper smile to my face.

Music is powerful. I thought. It can make you feel so much better about yourself and your life, it can help you visualize your dreams, it can give you hope and strength. Just like Daddy. Balwin and I would wrap our music about ourselves snugly and shut out the nasty world.

Let them curse and laugh, ridicule until they're blue in the face.

All we'll hear is the rhythm and the blues or the melody of Birdland. I'll sing louder, better and longer.

And I'll drown them all out.

7 Sweet Harmony

I decided not to say anything to Balwin about his father visiting me. Of course. Balwin was confused as to why his father was so cooperative about my coming over to practice music, giving him the car to pick me up, never questioning what we were doing and never complaining about the noise. It filled him with suspicions, and he often wondered aloud about it when I was there. I thought it would just break his heart even to think that I might be seeing him only because his father was paving me.

"It's almost as if he's happy I got into a fight at school," Balwin said. "My mother was far more upset than he was about it. In fact, she was the one to suggest I should stop seeing you."

"Maybe you should." I quickly said.

"No, no, it's all become nothing," he promised. He was back in school and back at the piano for

our chorus rehearsals. An unexpected and happy result of the fight and of all the trouble we both had with other students was Balwin's loss of shyness. He was no longer reluctant about talking to me and sitting with me at lunch. It was as if the fight had been some sort of initiation he had to endure in order to be accepted. Almost immediately afterward, fewer and fewer boys teased him, and those who did, didn't do it with any enthusiasm.

"They're making things up about us behind our backs anyway," Balwin rationalized after I had made a remark about it. He gazed around the cafeteria, still searching for wry smiles and sly glances.

"We never needed their permission to talk to each other. Ballwin," I told him.

"Right. Who even cares about them?" he asked with his new bravado.