Grey Street // H.S.

Chapter 23: "Look how they shine for you."

"That wasn't that bad, was it?" Harry asks as we trudge through impossibly tall grass. It rubs against the exposed skin of my legs and I do everything I can not to stop and scratch everywhere.

"Possibly the worst two hours of my life."

"Stop being so bitter," he turns around and smiles at me, not believing a thing I just said. He walks backward still smiling while the dusky sky gets darker with every moment.

"Okay, it wasn't that bad," I admit defeat.

It was one thing for me to stay in the room after I figured out what we were doing but it was even more difficult to actually talk to someone at the "info session". Harry had to get me going, honestly. The first booth we walked up to was for an internship at an art studio in Seattle. I walked right up to the lady standing there with brochures in her hand and found it impossible to speak. So Harry asked questions for me, really good ones too, and soon enough I was talking to the woman about whether or not I would get to paint while there or if my only job would be getting coffee for the higher ups. Because honestly I would rather be poor with no internship and painting than memorizing the amount of sugar someone takes in their cup of joe.

From there on I was able to have conversations like a normal person without relying on Harry's charmful ways. He stuck with me the whole time and listened to everything the presenters had to say, probably in more depth than I was. He also made sure to take pamphlets from each booth we stopped at because I refused to be prepared in any way. When we stopped at the table that was set up for the school in London, Harry talked to the man that was standing there for about a half hour. He wasn't much older than us and I could tell he was slightly surprised when he heard Harry first speak because you don't come across too many British people in South Dakota. I eventually left the booth, departing ways from Harry for a while once they started talking about some football game.

By the time we left, Harry's holding about thirty different brochures, three different numbers from drooling college girls and a handful of suckers I stole from a table. I don't know if it would actually be considered stealing since they were technically up for grabs, but I'm sure it was more of "please take one" situation rather than the whole jar like I did.

Truth is, it really wasn't that bad. While some of the internships and programs seemed more like a scam to get young people to clean up after more established artists some of them seemed worthwhile. I particularly liked one in New York that was set up to mentor and teach different art skills to school children. I may not exactly like all children but I love the idea of getting more kids into art in general. Plus the girl at that table was super bad ass and talked about how amazing it was to live in New York.

"How did you even know about that?" I ask Harry because I didn't have any clue that something like that was going on at the college, especially since it's the middle of summer.

"Umm," he hesitates for a moment. "Well, your dad told me about it."

I'm not positive I heard him right at first but by the worried look on his face I can tell that I did. "What? Now you're scheming with my parents?" I'm a lot angrier about hearing this than I probably should be.

"No," he's quick to speak back. "That's not it at all. I ran into him at the store the other day and he asked me how I was and normal stuff like that," this isn't making anything better right now because I haven't had much of a conversation with my dad since the whole incident with my mom. So the fact that he can talk to Harry no problem makes me, I don't know... jealous? "We got on the topic of you and he mentioned the info fair. He wasn't trying to scheme me into making you go but after talking to him about it I thought maybe it was a good idea."

I don't say anything because I'm trying to decide how to feel about it. I don't like the idea of Harry planning things with my dad but I also feel a little bit of happiness knowing that my dad was thinking about me and what I actually want. I may not have talked with my dad much in the last few weeks but there is still something inside of him that cares.