I laugh, relieved that at least the consequences of our assembly performance were mild. As soon as the bell rings, Santiago rattles off her usual spiel about lab safety and handling chemicals. Our first lab of the semester is testing how aluminum and zinc react with hydrochloric acid. It’s the only chemical the school allows the lab to stock that’s actually dangerous, so Santiago reiterates every rule in the book. It’s the same lecture we got in Honors Chemistry last year, but Reid is taking meticulous notes as if his life depends on it.

It’s too easy, simply being the best.

Except Reid wasn’t the best. Not when I played.

Now that Melted is over…

Reid’s words echo in my head and I want nothing more than to wipe the confident smirk off his face. And it hits me—there is competition to start. It just isn’t about the clarinet.

I spend the rest of class writing in my notebook, drafting and redrafting the perfect response to Reid’s invitation to play the instrument that turned a childhood rivalry into a full-out war. My pen glides across the notebook paper, personal attacks composed in perfect script. Each version is a slightly different wording of the same simple truth.

I’d rather dump hydrochloric acid on myself than play the clarinet with Reid again.

And Melted is far from over.

Happy Birthday in Jazz Clarinet

In an alternate universe, I move through the world in quarter notes and four-four time signatures.

Dad and I spend hours in the studio together, just the two of us and our music. He corrects my breathing technique and coaches me through “Rhapsody in Blue” before abandoning the classics for improvisational jazz. Weekends are spent either preparing for auditions or attending festivals. Music is my blood, like Dad.

Sometimes I forget that before the clarinet was Reid’s, it was mine.

The memory from third grade is a series of stills. Cake. Mom radiating excitement in a midlength purple dress, fresh off selling a new series. The final score after an intense game of Mario Kart with Reid, back when our relationship was a fun series of meaningless kid competitions. Dad holding his clarinet out to me with an encouraging smile. My back straightening like a marionette pulled by its strings, ready for the moment we’d been practicing for weeks.

Us playing “Happy Birthday,” for Delia in jazz clarinet.

Dad blew through the mouthpiece while I sat on his lap. My fingers moved up and down the keys, barely big enough to cover the holes, but creating music. Dad’s breath was staccato, giving me just enough time to switch between the notes. In that moment, music felt like something that was Dad’s and mine. Only ours.