9th November 2009

Bailey’s POV

I had history last today. The rest of the day had been quiet, as Jeremy was once again not here, and I had no idea why. I did my best in attempting to concentrate on what is going on during my lessons but it was hard.

As soon as I took my seat in Mr Saltzman’s classroom, I knew he wouldn’t allow me to get away with the way I had spoken to him on Friday. I highly doubted he’d actually shout at me for shouting at him, but I knew he’d want to talk to me about it never the less.

It wasn’t as if I wasn’t trying to learn, but the lesson was just boring. We were learning about world war one, which I just found rather boring. I was doing my best to concentrate but it was hard to do when I found the topic extremely boring.

Once the lesson was over, I was very surprised that I hadn’t fallen asleep during it. As I went to leave the classroom I heard Mr Saltzman call my name, so once again I turned around and walked back to his desk.

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know why he was sorry. It was unexpected; I knew I was the one who should have been saying sorry not him. He didn’t do anything wrong.

“What? Why are you sorry?” I questioned raising my eyebrow.

“I didn’t know that Mr Tanner was your Father. I should have guessed with you have the same last name, but I was just stupid. I completely understand how you could see how I was trying to be like your Father, but honestly I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to over step the boundaries, and upset you,” He smiled softly.

“Honestly you did nothing wrong. You were completely right, for attempting to help me with everything wrong with my life. You’re a teacher, and you’d want the best for your students. And I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It wasn’t your fault for not knowing that my Dad had died, and you were working in his job. I was the one at fault, and I’m sorry,” I responded with the same soft smile.

He smiled once again taking a seat at his desk and gesturing for me to take the seat opposite him, which I did.

“Are you still doing drugs, with that friend of yours? He still hasn’t turned up to one of my lessons yet,” He questioned.

“Well I am still doing drugs. I don’t know about him, I haven’t spoken to him since Thursday. I honestly have no idea where he is though. He said he was going to stop getting high though, and since then I haven’t heard from him,” I shrugged.

It made me feel bad for not contacting him though. What if something bad had happened to him? Although he was a very smart person, he could have done something very stupid, and I really hoped he wouldn’t do something like that.

“Have you thought about stopping yet?” He asked me, looking genuinely concerned.

“Yeah. I want to stop but I don’t think I could handle the psychological and emotional pain that comes with the reality of my Father’s death. I just need something to help mask all the pain, and sadly drugs are the only thing that does that.

He sighed in a thoughtful way. He tapped his fingers as he looked up in thought.

“Well I can help you Bailey. You need to become clean, and yes the pain will hurt a lot at first, but you’ll find ways in just remembering the happiness that was there when he was alive, other the sadness of him not being here anymore. Please let me help you Bailey. I’ve seen your old school reports, and you were working at a much higher level than you should for your age, and you are capable of doing so much better, but you need to become clean to do so,” He sighed with a soft, encouraging smile.

“Thank you Mr Saltzman, I would really like for you to help me get clean. I know it’s going to be hard but I want to be my old self,” I shrugged.

This was going to be hard to become normal again. I knew the drugs had completely changed me as a person, and I didn’t really like the new version of me.

“Of course I’d love to help you Bailey. Just you need to help yourself too. You need to stop doing drugs on your own behalf, and I can help you get your focus back on school, and for someone to talk to if you need to,” He smiled.

“Thank you. Can I go now please Mr Saltzman? I need to find Jeremy and talk to him. It’d be easier for me to go through if Jeremy is stopping drugs too, and I want to see whether he is okay, and coming back to school,” I stated.

“Sure. And Call me Alaric or Ric,” He chuckled.

“Okay, thank you Alaric,” I smiled standing up.

We said our goodbyes before I left the classroom and the school. It was the first time in a long while that I had actually spent the whole day in school. Most of the time I would either leave early from school or I wouldn’t come into school until late.

I stated making my way to the Mystic Grill. Other than his house that was basically my only guess of where Jeremy could be, so I hoped he’d actually be there, because if not I would go to his house and see whether he is there.

When I reached the Grill I walked in quickly scanning the room to see whether he was in the room. I looked over to the pool table where I saw Jeremy playing pool with some random guy that I had never seen before. 

I quickly made my way across the grill to him. As soon as he saw me he smiled softly.

“Hi Bailey, what are you doing here?” He questioned.

“I wanted to talk to you. Can we talk somewhere privately?” I smiled softly fiddling with my thumbs.

“Sure,” He smiled back, “I’ll see you later mate.”

Together we walked together to a booth at the side of the room.

“What do you want to talk about?” he questioned.

I sighed. It felt awkward in actually talking to him. Even though we were friends, the only thing that really connected us in our friendship was drugs. And if we decided to take drugs out of our friendship then, would we really be able to connect with anything.

“Our new history teacher asked me where you were. And also I am going to quit getting high. Have you stopped? Or are you continuing?” I sighed.

“I’ve tried to stop. It’s hard but I’ve been clean for a couple of days. I want to stop, are you sure you want to stop?” He smiled softly.

“I’m sure Jer. I really need to be the same person as I was before. Even if this means we aren’t friends anymore, I am fine with who I was before, I just need to be clean,” I frowned.

“Why would you think we wouldn’t be friends?” He questioned.

“Well the drugs made us friends, and I’m sure when you aren’t high, you’ll realise I am boring and wouldn’t want to be friends with me,” I shrugged.

It was true, no matter what I was friends with him due to the drugs, and there was nothing that would make us friends after we stopped doing them. Yeah I liked him a lot more than friends, but he never noticed me before we were high and I highly doubted he’d want to know me after we stopped, as I’m sure he has louds of friends other than me.

“Bailey, don’t be an idiot. You are a great person and I want to be friends with you after we get through this hard time of becoming clean. It’s a pity that we became friends due to drugs, but I want to be your friend,” He smiled warmly.

“I really want to be friends with you Jeremy. It’d be nice for my first friendship to last longer than two months, with most of it being forgotten,” I laughed.

We ordered some food, and talked why we waited for it to come over to our table.

“So what’s this new teacher like for history?” He asked.

“He seems nice. Granted the first time we spoke, I did end up running out of his classroom after shouting in his face. He seems nice though, and I’m sure he’ll be a good teacher,” I shrugged.

It was true that he did seem like a nice person, as it was weird that he cared so much in trying to make me a normal student. I’m sure he wasn’t making an exception in making me a better student but I guess choosing the messed up one to help does show that he is devoted in his student.