In Search of Tomorrow ✓

Thirty-Three

I'd only just gotten to school the next day when a familiar voice chided over the intercom, "Can we have Evelyn Caverly in the front office please? Again, we need Evelyn Caverly in the front office."

I glanced at Cameron, who shrugged and kept walking to his locker, and then turned to head to my guidance counselor's office. I'd probably gotten another email setting up a meeting with her that I hadn't checked.

"Hi, Mrs. Barrett," I said when I sat down in the familiar red chair and set my backpack at my feet. My guidance counselor was sitting in her chair facing me with a folder with my name on it spread out in front of her.

"Evelyn," she said, smiling. The smile itself was sort of fake, and a little too wide to be believable, but at least she wasn't frowning. "How are you doing?"

I pressed my back against the chair and crossed my legs, pressing my lips together. How she expected me to talk to her about all my problems, I had no idea.

"I understand if it's a little difficult to talk about," she said. Now she brings out the trademark guidance counselor lines? "I'm here if you do want to discuss it, though."

We sat in an uncomfortable silence for several minutes. I sensed she was waiting for me to say something—I was waiting for her to dismiss me so that I could get to math without missing too much of Mr. Robert's lecture.

Finally, she cleared her throat and said, "Your grades have increased steadily."

"Yes."

She flipped to a certain page in her folder and added, "You even managed to clinch an A in art."

I thought back to my dandelion. I'd barely even touched it in class the previous day—it looked fake and like a fantasy to me now.

"If you ever need to talk to me about your sister or anything, I'll be here." She sounded eager to dismiss me, and her voice was edged with fatigue. "You can go now so you're not late to math."

Not looking back at her, I heaved my backpack over my shoulders and swung open the door to leave her office.

"Evelyn?" she called after me—I heard her putting up my file and already beginning to type on her computer. When I turned around, she said, "I'm sorry if I misjudged you a little initially. I had no idea you had everything you did on your plate." She nodded as if in acknowledgement to me. "I commend your attempts to raise your grades on top of everything else."

Smiling hesitantly at her, I shut the door behind me and headed towards pre-calc. I arrived just as the bell rang and slid into my seat after handing in my homework.

The school day dragged. During art class, I pretended to color in my dandelion while really not even touching my paintbrush to paper at all. Mr. Olson didn't say anything, even though I knew he saw what I was doing. Instead, he spent a lot of time dissecting the guy next to me's drawing of the girl. She looked sort of like me.

I ate lunch with Ashley and the girls again, firstly because Ashley invited me to and secondly because I was tired of eating with Cameron's rowdy senior friends. Cameron offered to sit with me, but after I pointed out that just because we were dating didn't mean we had to eat lunch together every day, he relented.

"The prom's this weekend, you know," said Ashley excitedly as I sat down and began twisting spaghetti around my fork. "What are you wearing?"

"I don't have anything to wear," I admitted, and to my surprise none of the girls at the table exchanged shocked glances. I guessed an orphan wasn't supposed to own a prom dress.