Thirty Five Days

3: The Next Step

I was pulled out of class again by my social skills teacher, Mr Urie,as he wanted to have "a quick catch up" with me to see how I was doing on the friendship front. Like hell was I actually gonna tell him that Matt and Chris still kept to their little bubble of band in-jokes and band rehearsals that turned into trips into the city.Instead I was gonna feed him a some half-truths about how well I was getting on with Mikey and that I had been invited to his house by him rather than me following him home the way I did with the band practises. God, the teachers loved to hear all that improvement bullshit.

"Are you sure this is how you want to go about this Frank? You don't want to just invite Matt and Chris out with you rather than spending your last month with somebody you've basically never spoken to before. That's not to say of course that I am discouraging from talking to Mikey but still, there are perhaps better ways of building your friendship with the two boys."

"Honestly, Mr Urie, I'm fine with talking to Mikey. Besides he was assigned to Chris not me so the two of them have to talk to him as well. Anyway, I guess it's probably better to have one new friend for the last few weeks than two old not-quite-friends."

The last part was more a verbalised thought than something I had planned on sharing with Urie but then again, the only reason he had gotten anything of real meaning from me was because of my terrible brain-mouth barrier. I accidentally thought out loud a little too often for other people not to have noticed.

"Frank, are you sure you're okay? Most teenagers wouldn't come outwith something like that about their friends if I asked them to. I'm not trying to pry remember, I'm trying to help."

"I already said I'm fine, didn't I? Why would that have changed now? I'm talking to somebody, you should be happy."

I was starting to get properly annoyed now but I doubted that Urie would notice, I mean teachers only see what they want to see, unless it's shoved in their face. He hadn't even raised an eyebrow when I spoke so he clearly wasn't going to get confrontational about the whole thing. Good – that meant I could get out of here sooner, not that I wanted to go back to class but more that I really didn't want to be talking to him.

"Well, if you're happy talking to Mikey instead of focussing on Matt and Chris then that's fine with me. We'll have another little chat in a few weeks, okay, just to check that you're still doing okay. Don't forget, you can come and find me before then if you want,you know where I am."

"Yeah, whatever. See you later." Perhaps I was being a bit rude to him but at that point I just didn't care.

"Okay, well, on you go then. If you're teacher asks where you were get them to call me."

I didn't respond as I walked out the room, seriously considering skipping class for the rest of the day, something I hadn't done in awhile since they caught me one too many times and put me on an attendance card. The only thing stopping me from walking out was Mikey – if I left he would be completely alone because there was no way Matt and Chris were going to talk to him. I could take him with me but I'd have to be careful to get him out without the teachers noticing what I was doing.

I found myself at the school office before I really thought my plan through, asking the bored, middle aged secretary what class Mikey Way was in – 'Mr Urie wanted to know'. I very much doubted she cared who it was for as she reluctantly closed whatever window she was using on her computer screen and brought up the school's timetable.

"Art with Mr Wentz – it's a double period."

"That's great, thank you," I smiled at her, deliberately too cheerfully as I turned to rescue Mikey from perhaps the school's only enthusiastic teacher.