Your father, Terence Fletcher, was not only the biggest asshole in all of Schaffer Conservatory, but also possibly the world. Upon telling your classmates that Fletcher is your father, they laugh and say that nobody could ever possibly love that bastard enough to have a kid with him. Those that do believe you, however, would rather not associate with you out of fear of Fletcher kicking their asses.

You drift alone at Schaffer. You are in Fletcher’s studio band, of course — and yet he treats you just as harshly, if not worse, than the rest of them. None of your bandmates speak to you. Fletcher does not acknowledge you unless you make a mistake. This has been your life since birth.

You are, by far, a hundred times more talented than your father. He knows this, and so does anyone else who chooses to interact with you. You have a better ear for music than he does, yet you keep your mouth shut. Nobody would listen to you — you’re not the conductor.

The only person who even pretends you exist is Andrew Neiman, the new core drummer. He’s 19 years old, still a little green, still a little soft. He keeps to himself like you do. He’s really good, and yet Fletcher terrorizes him all the same. He plays with both his mind and his emotions, all to get him to improve.

You wish Neiman had a break. He had only ever been nice to you, even though this was through brief smiles across the room and polite nods of the head. He’d held open a door for you once, you said thank you, and he said you’re welcome. Simple as that. And yet that was the extent.

You wish you could treat him better. You wish Fletcher was nicer to him. You wish Ryan, the old core drummer and new alternative was nicer to him. And you wish Connolly, the second alternative, was nicer to him.

He experiences half the pain that you do and yet you somehow cannot bear it.

Neiman is sitting in the practice room, going over Caravan over and over again. He’s playing so hard that his hands are bleeding. This hurts you, of course. You had come in to practice a different piece — something your father would never approve of.

Neiman startles when he sees you, and immediately stops playing. “Sorry, sorry,” he says quickly. “I’ll leave. I’ve been in here long enough.”