Closed To Be Known

[Santiago Torres]

Santiago liked Eloise. Or at least liked her more than anyone else at this school. Not that he would ever tell her that but it was nice to have someone he didn't need to have all his walls up to be around. Not like June or the other boys in his dorm. They had started hanging out a bit but it tended to be away from everyone else which he liked and he was sure Eloise was probably happy not to be seen with him. He sat in one of the empty and dusty chairs as he strummed his guitar. He hadn't played it much since getting to school and it was pretty out of tune. He still couldn't believe he had signed up for the showcase last year. At least they hadn't laughed him off the stage but the memory still made him cringe. It would probably be a long time before he would try anything like that again. He diligently worked through all the strings until he could strum a chord and it sounded right. He glanced over at Eloise and raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

 

[Eloise Aster]

Even when she had brought home terrific grades Eloise knew her parents still hadn't been completely pleased with her. They had been agreeable about her grades but getting straight O's wasn't special. It was what was expected of her. What they expected of her. No need to applaud her for that. Instead, they had made sure she knew their disappointment on the matter of her social circle. Which wasn't truly a circle. More of a few stray dots connected by shaky lines. She had refrained from sharing details about those 'dots' with her parents though, preferring to have them think she was failing at making any connections at all. She liked the few people she was able to hang out with and she wasn't going to let her parents take that from her. Hanging out with Santiago more often had been nice, way different from how things were when she hung out with June. Even if it meant having to spend time in a dusty, old classroom. Eloise hadn't even noticed she had been staring at Santiago while he was strumming his guitar, trying to see if she could figure out the tuning. "I- nothing." She responded without much thought, almost as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't. Which she hadn't. "I was just trying to figure out if I could recognize when it sounded right. I've been playing piano for years but I don't think I'd be able to tune it myself.."

 

[Santiago Torres]

(if you don't want to continue with this thread i totally understand!)

Santiago sighed quietly to himself. Even when he tried to be nice he still came off sounding like a jerk. He considered what Elosie said and cracked a smile. "Well a guitar has a lot less strings." he pointed out. He had never learned piano. To him it seemed pretty boring but he had seen inside one once and saw what looked like hundreds of strings in there. That would take all day to tune probably. He hesitated before gesturing to his guitar. "Do you want me to teach you some chords?"