The Monsters Inside and Out (Scott Howl x Depressed Reader)

58. Back to Normal

The rest of the weekend passes by smoothly, with nothing of note happening. You sleepily wake up and get ready for school. You pick out an outfit, and get ready to walk out the door, when your mom grabs your arm, stopping you. "(Y/N), what the hell is he doing out there?" Your mom slightly pushes two blinds apart. You look through it, seeing Scott parked in front of your house. You answer, "I'm not sure. I'll go talk to him." You make another attempt to leave, but she grabs your arm again. "Oh no you will not. I told you, you can't see him anymore." "But I gotta go to school! I can't just walk out there without expecting him to talk to me." Your mother thinks for a moment, then says, "Climb the fence." "What?" "Go out the back door, and jump over the fence, and walk to school from there!" She smiles at you, as if she came up with a brilliant idea. You give her a look of disbelief as you sigh, "Alright. Fine." You walk to the back door and exit. Your mom watches as you do so, so you really have to jump the fence. You jump up once. It's pathetic. You jump again, getting a bit higher this time. You continue to jump, raising your arms up in an attempt to catch the top of the fence. Why the hell is it so tall anyway? You feel frustrated and embarrassed. You've been going at it for a solid 2 minutes at least. Instead of letting your anger take over, you close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths. You are suddenly stricken with a surge of determination and you jump again, much higher. So high in fact, you can see Scott in his car, on the other side of your house. Your mom runs outside, a look of perpetual fear on her face. She says, "H-Honey! Don't worry! Mommy will catch you!" She holds out her arms in an attempt to catch you. However, you don't seem to be falling. It's more like you're slowly floating down. You look over to the other side of the fence, clearly visible. You begin leaning in that direction, controlling where you end up. You extend your feet out to land, and fall a little faster. You land perfectly on your two feet, feeling empowered. You hear your mother frantically run to the fence, and her strained voice says, "Honey, are you alright? Did you get hurt?" You tell her, "Yeah mom, I'm fine. I'll see you after school." As you say that, you whip out your phone, and text Scott, telling him to meet you at the end of your street. You walk to the meeting point and you see his tired face turn into a wide smile. You walk around his car and get in the front seat.

He turns over to you and says, "I'm sorry, I forgot your mom doesn't want you to see me." You chuckle and caress his cheek once, telling him, "It's okay. How are you feeling?" His smile widens again, "I'm feeling a lot better! Having a weekend with my family really helped me feel better." "Well that's good." He holds his hand out for you to hold. You grab it and intertwine your fingers, and he drives to school. He tells you, "I already dropped my cousins off, so that's why they aren't here." You simply nod your head in response. He pulls into the parking lot of school and gets out of the car, and you do the same. You hold hands again as you walk into the building, and you greet a group of your friends. It's Brian, Zoe, Vicky, and Oz. At first, you're slightly worried about Scott's feelings with him being around 3 people who have apparently hurt him, but he doesn't appear fazed at all, which allows you to relax. The six of you socialize until the bell rings, letting you know to go to your lockers and get to first period. And then, that's it. The entire day passes by without anything too interesting happening, and it continues like that.

Before you even know it, two weeks have gone by, and honestly, you can't complain. Everyone seems to be up to their regular shenanigans once again. It seemed as though things had changed forever, but it turns out you were wrong. You are sitting in class when the morning announcements come on. You hear the voice of Principal Giant Spider say, "Good morning students, this is Principal Giant Spider with your morning announcements. Today's lunch is sloppy joes and tater tots, with the choice of an additional vegetable. This week's book club meeting is cancelled due to Ms. Agnes-Hotep being ill. And lastly, today is the first day of February. And you know what that means! A shameless school fundraiser! Valentine's Day is coming up in two weeks, so starting tomorrow in the lobby, there will be a booth set up selling things you can get for your special someone. It's a day all about love, so you can purchase something to be delivered on Valentine's Day! You can get roses, chocolate, cards, candy apples and more! And as per usual, you can also buy items for cursing your exes, bullies, people you are jealous of, et cetera. We hope you will get something for someone! These have been your morning announcements, and this is Principal Giant Spider, signing off." As soon as the announcements ended, everyone in class began talking amongst themselves about the upcoming "holiday". You're feelings about Valentine's Day is somewhat complicated. You don't hate it as much as some people, but seeing as you've been single your whole life, it's never been anything special for you. This year though, is different. You have Scott. Maybe he'll end up doing something that will make you change your mind forever. Your teacher allows the class to continue to discuss their plans for a few more minutes, until eventually ending things so you can begin going over the lesson. The rest of class carries on and at the end of the period, you get a text from Vicky. 'Hey (Y/N)! If you don't mind, would you like to sit with Brian, Amira, Oz and I at lunch?' You type back, 'sure thing.' You're not too particularly worried about what she wants, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't a tad nervous. The way she said it, almost seems like she wants to talk to you about something specific. You push those thoughts aside and just wait until lunchtime arrives.