The following five months were… Well, pretty blissful considering how terrible things had been before my talk with Harry. He and I still couldn’t hold a conversation, but we managed to be in the same room together without ripping the others throat out.
Diana had been keeping me busy as well, going to the diner, sitting at our spot in the courtyard making fun of poetry together, and concerts. Lots of concerts. See, Diana was in a band, but not as a lead singer, or a guitarist as most girls were commonly associated. Nope. Diana was the drummer. And man, she was good. I honestly don’t think her band, (For some reason called HungryUniverse, she said it meant something but her explanation made no sense at all to me) would be nearly as popular as it currently is if she wasn’t in it.
I realize it had been a short time with her, but it felt like she had always been there with me. We hadn’t talked about anything serious since the night I asked about her parents. I think she had purposely been avoiding the topic.
She had met my mom already, and my mother instantly fell in love with the ‘bright, kind and polite’ girl that my mom clearly knew very well. Harry had been warming up to her a bit, she’d deny it if I asked her but I’m pretty sure that once when I was returning from the bathroom I saw her and Harry laughing pretty hard over something. Of course, the moment I stepped in the room they both got dead silent and shot each other unhappy looks.
Though Harry and I had been doing well, the whole school still hated me. I suspected that this was because of Lily, Harry’s girlfriend, who was still telling anyone who listened about the night of the party and what a victim she was. Harry had managed to calm her down enough that she wasn’t claiming that I raped her. I really didn’t though, from what I can remember, she was really throwing herself at me and I was so drunk that I had no idea what I was doing.
School would be over in a month, we were having graduation late because of a whole bunch of snow days we needed to make up. So when I got called to the office, I figured it was to talk about how I was running late on my payment for my cap and gown.
I took a seat in my guidance counselor, Ms. Perrywinkle's office which in my opinion had way too many cat statues. Particularly of those cats with the screwed up faces. Don’t get me wrong, I love cats but this… Well it was a bit creepy.
Everyone called Ms. Perrywinkle, Ms. P, But I think that was just her trying to make herself feel young and cool again so I called her Ms. Perry. Shockingly, she didn’t not fit the old cat lady stereotype too exactly. She was a woman with long brown hair, streaked with a few lines of grey, that was always pulled back into a too tight braid. She had this thing about always having some item of her outfit being white and today it was her jacket.
The moment I sat down she began to talk, “Hello there Mr. Styles, how’re you doing today?” She asks, pushing her glasses up to her forehead.
“Fine, I guess, and you can just call me Marcel.” I say with a shrug, fiddling with my fingers because there is nothing more awkward than being center of attention when there is only one other person in the room.
“That’s good, that’s good.” She says, typing something on her laptop. There’s a moment of silence before she continues, “I called you up here today, Marcel, to tell you that your Benevolent Buddy will not be in school next week, so I thought I would let you know in case you had made plans with her.”
