The Bad Boy of Guidance

White pine needles tick-tick-ticking against the window (like time, like subpoenas, like success slipping through desperate fingers). Sean "Puffy" Combs—guidance counselor badge gleaming against midnight cashmere in defiance of July heat—watches Timothy fold and unfold a college brochure with trembling hands.

"You're scared of greatness," Diddy says, voice smooth as aged cognac. "I see it in you." (He always sees it, has seen it since '91, watching Biggie in that Brooklyn deli, greatness wrapped in oversized plaid. And, of course, he saw it in *himself* when he dodged those civil suits back in 2023.) "But let me tell you something—" The words hang crystalline in the wood-paneled office, where motivational posters crowned with EXCELLENCE and PERSEVERANCE float like fever-dream billboards through ambient dust motes.

Timothy's fingers still their anxious origami. The brochure—Dartmouth, all autumn leaves and ivory towers—lies conquered.

"Your parents want medical school." Diddy adjusts his titanium-framed glasses, a gesture unchanged since the Bad Boy days, when contracts—not college applications—filled his field of vision. "But I'm hearing music in your molecules, young king. Been hearing it since you picked up that violin at talent night."

Timothy shifts uneasily in the cracked faux-leather chair. "But my parents—"

"Let me stop you right there." Diddy raises a hand, fingers adorned with the same diamond-studded rings that once clinked ominously on court tables. "Your parents invested in possibilities. I invested in certainties. Like the certainty that I'd bounce back from adversity every time someone tried to bring me down. You think lawsuits shook me? Nah, they sharpened me. You think settlements were failures? They were *lessons*, my man."

(The office smells of pine and privilege and potential. Always potential. And maybe a hint of Diddy’s custom cologne, Success by Sean John™.)

Timothy's posture performs a minute transformation: thoracic vertebrae realigning themselves toward possibility. Diddy catalogues the shift with predatory precision. He’s built empires on smaller tells than this.

"But—" Timothy's voice emerges quantum-uncertain, simultaneously strong and fragile—"they've already mapped out my whole pre-med schedule. MCAT prep starts next summer. My father keeps saying music was fine for building discipline, but now it's time to be practical—"

"Practical?" Diddy rises, Trevor Emory suit whispering against leather. The word hangs between them like a challenge. Outside, beyond the window's membrane, children's voices carry across the lake like scattered prayers. "Let me tell you about practical. I invested everything in what they told me couldn't be. Took that investment, multiplied it through sheer—" he pauses, letting the word build like a bass drop "—audacity."

Timothy’s eyes track Diddy’s movement with the hesitant hunger of a young artist recognizing permission. The air conditioner hums in G minor.

"Your parents want you to follow their dream." Diddy taps a perfectly manicured finger on the Dartmouth brochure, smirking as if it personally offended him. "But when I started Bad Boy Records, my mother wanted me to be an accountant. ACCOUNTANT." He pauses for effect, raising his voice just loud enough to make the secretary peek nervously through the office door. "You think Forbes lists are full of accountants? Nah, young king. They’re full of *visionaries*."

Timothy blinks. "I don’t know if I—"

"You don't know if you what? Have what it takes? Let me tell you something about doubt." Diddy leans forward, elbows on mahogany, presence filling the room like smoke. "Doubt is success whispering, 'You sure, though?' And you know what I whisper back? ‘Hell yes.’"

A blue jay lands on the windowsill—watching, witnessing. Timothy straightens his spine, lets the Dartmouth brochure fall. His fingers twitch with phantom violin strings.

"I’m still not sure," Timothy starts hesitantly, but his voice is different—less a whimper, more a melody.

Diddy laughs, the sound layered with multitudes: Brooklyn streets and Manhattan penthouses, platinum records and publicists dialing damage control. "Let me tell you what I’m sure about. I’m sure that you, my young maestro, have the gift. And you know what we do with gifts?"

Timothy shakes his head, entranced.

"We unwrap them. And then we drop them on *everybody's heads*." Diddy pulls a gilt-edged Rolodex from his desk drawer, its pages heavy with the weight of connections. "I know a little conservatory in New York. They owe me a favor. Well, several favors. Let me make a call."

The guidance office holds its breath. Somewhere outside, beyond the pines, beyond the whispers of old lawsuits and newer scandals, the future rearranges itself like notes finding their perfect chord.