He went in his room. Didn’t bother to turn on the lights. Put in the disk, put it on repeat, plugged in the headphones, stretched them to the bed. Lay down.
I can live this way, he thought. If this song is on, I never have to leave this room. He fell asleep.

He’d been passed out for hours, headphones around his head like a helmet. He woke up halfway, aware of an extra beat. Then it was a bang. A pounding, like his head had before. He was more up now, and got it—someone was knocking on his door.

He took the headphones off. Instead of dark and quiet, the room was dark and noisy. His favorite song was blasting into the entire room, not just his ears.

“Son,” he heard his father say outside the door. “It’s late. We’re going to sleep now. Could you turn it down?”
He started to answer, explain that the headphone plug was loose and he didn’t know, explain how shocked he was that he’d brought someone else into this world he’d created, and oh no, what they must think of him. He didn’t get a chance to apologize. There’s no way his father was hearing him above the music. And he realized he wasn’t being asked for an apology. He could tell, he just knew, that his father had made his request, turned around and shuffled back to bed.

He shut down the player, just slammed the power off. Even though it had just been a little red light, having it off suddenly made the room that much darker. And quieter. Colder.
He had no idea what time it was. It was very dark.

He tried to think. His father—he’d calmed down. He hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t even come in. He’d heard the same noisy, crazy, angry, excruciatingly sad song playing over and over and over for hours—maybe in the far distance, if he’d been downstairs or in the attic, but there’s no chance he couldn’t have heard it. And he just let it go on, until he needed to sleep.

There was some kind of understanding there, wasn’t there? That people just needed to recover themselves, and other people really ought to try to let them do it. Even if, he knew, they never ever really would understand.

He’d gotten away with something, hadn’t he? He’d lit up the skies, brought the thunder, pummeled others with his private thoughts, transmitted through the song. But he didn’t feel bold. It was a stand he’d planned to take. He didn’t feel pushy or strong. He felt like something had escaped, something he had hoped to keep for himself.

He needn’t have worried. In just about every possible way, he needn’t have worried. He woke early the next morning, still in his clothes but with plenty of time to clean up and get dressed and check over his homework and face the day.
He almost didn’t, but then had to: He plugged in the headphones tightly, then played the song, then played it again.