Dear Friend,

chapter 14

Lennox Monroe

Harry's demeanor has seemed really odd since Thanksgiving. Our phone calls got shorter and shorter and we were seeing each other less, and it started to feel all too familiar.

I was starting to think it was something I said, how I was thankful for him, but when I talked to Evie about it she tried to rationalize with me about how he's probably just stressed and overwhelmed by the upcoming album release.

He hasn't let me listen to anything, no matter how much I've been begging, even just for a little snippet, but unlike me Harry loves surprises. More than that, he loves teasing me and laughing at the fact that he knows something and I don't.

I called him during my lunch period at school when he was on his flight and he seemed normal and excited about his listening party and the show that he was doing in LA until I heard the voice of someone next to him and he rushed to hang up on me.

I tried not to think too much about it, assuming it was someone from his team trying to get his attention before they landed but there was something telling me that it wasn't.

Our phone call was cut short, but he still got to tell me a little bit about the listening party and show he had planned. The listening party was exclusive to some fans who got to hear the album before it came out and was planned for tonight, a few hours before the official release.

The album is supposed to come out tonight, and I was feeling overly excited about it, as were some of my students. I started picking up on their conversations much more than I did at the beginning of the year and quickly realized how many of their conversations are centered around Harry.

At one point during the morning, the girls were pulling up their Google Maps trying to see if they could plan a road trip from New York to Los Angeles in less than 24 hours to make it there for the show he has tomorrow night.

I started laughing at their eagerness, finding their enthusiasm so funny seeing some of my younger self in them, but also laughing at the fact that all of it was for Harry. The same guy I was just on the phone with and they are borderline obsessed with him.

During the last few weeks before winter break, I have always tried to make the least stressful as possible for my students, especially because it's when they're doing the most in the other classes. Their last assignment of the year is a free choice where they get to pick whatever technique we learned throughout the semester to make a new project, as long as they were giving it as a gift.

Most of the students choose pottery, making vases and mugs that are almost always for their moms, but some choose to paint or do paper mache, and a couple have taken up crocheting.

Since they've all been working independently, I've been using the time to work on my own projects that I plan of gifting to everyone. I've started obsessively planning for Evie and Nate's baby, and I've crocheted at least 4 different hats for them with my free time.

The idea for Harry's gift came to me on Halloween when he came over for our annual pumpkin carving competition and he moved all the crocheted coasters that I had made saying that he would wear a cardigan of it.

I thought he was joking but he had a huge smile on his face as he talked about it so I decided to go along with it and make him something similar. It wasn't quite like what he laid out with the mixing patterns but it also wasn't tame by any means.

"Whatcha working on Miss M?" She pulled a chair from one of the table groups spinning it around and taking a seat right in front of my desk.

"Just a Christmas gift for a friend of mine, what about you Salem?"