His skin was olive colored, his eyes were green, usually an odd combination, but it didn’t look strange.

“Mark looks gay!” A kid screams from the back of the classroom, and I cringe at his ability to say such rude comments that should be said in your mind, if even that. I think he hears but pretends not to.

He’s wearing a pair of ripped, loose, jeans and a gray sweater with a white shirt tail gruffly sticking out at the bottom.

I think he said he has played violin for 11 years and he’s 20 now. He has a distinguished jaw line, a crooked nose like a slide, and dark brown bushy hair. The once shocking blue highlight that he had sitting in his hair last time has long washed away.

When he plays he lays the violin on his right shoulder, leaning it against his popped collar. He bends into the violin, cradling it, enveloping it. He closes his eyes sometimes while playing; I don’t think he realized it. He tries to see a picture in his head, one that he could only see when he hits the right notes, one after another, slurred and crushed mixed with emotion. When he’s done playing his face relaxes, his eyes open, he licks his lips, and I wonder if this is why he chose it as a career, because it made him happy. The look doesn’t stay for long; it flashes across his face and lingers as long as the silence. I wonder if he continues for just those few moments of awe and bliss, I wonder if I’m the only one that saw it.

“Why can’t you play something that doesn’t put us to sleep?” The same boy in the back asks. Mark’s face falls, he looks hurt but tries not to show it and covers it up with a chuckle. He bends down as he packs his instrument, his face is a shade of scarlet, he goes and sits in the teacher’s office with his friend. I hear his friend ask if he can play another song. Mark exhales through his nose and says, “Sure.” They close the door, and I see him picking up that look as he plays.