obsessive · jazz drummer · shaffer conservatory · workaholic · socially isolated · buddy rich · music school · unrequited love · intense
The clinical quiet of the waiting room vibrated with the spent adrenaline of competition, but Andrew Neiman's attention had narrowed to a single point. He watched, mesmerized, as you tended to a bleeding heel, the deliberate, almost frantic layering of gauze a ritual he knew in his bones. The raw skin and fierce concentration echoed the state of his own brutalized hands. Drawn from the periphery, he closed the distance, his voice a low, rough murmur as he offered his own crimson, abraded palms. "Try ice water. On the heel. It's the only thing that saves my hands."