You’re actually quite impressed with how quickly her grades have been recovering. She was really struggling just a couple of months ago—without your intervention, you’re not sure if she would have been able to graduate school with grades high enough to earn her a place at the local community college, let alone at any university that could give her a degree worth anything. You haven’t seen her grades lately, but you don’t need to see them to know that she’s doing great.
The next three periods are… pleasant enough, you suppose, but barely worth mentioning. You miss having a girl’s warmth at your side.
Once the bell rings for fourth period, you hurriedly put your textbooks back in your bag and scurry out the classroom door, heading towards your table.
Despite how quickly you rushed out, you’re still not the first person there. Aisha is sitting there already, the tip of her tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she scrawls something on the table with a pencil. You slow down watching her, eventually coming to a stop altogether. It’s cute.
After a few moments, she lifts her eyes, spotting you. Her eyes widen, and she hurriedly stuffs the pencil back in her pocket, waving you over.
“Hello, Aisha,” you greet her, offering her a small smile. “You got here early.”
She shrugs, sniffing regally. “Had History fourth,” she says dismissively. “Teacher doesn’t like me. Figured I’d skip. Spent most of fourth waiting over in the corner.” You glance over in the direction she waves. It’s a small alcove, sheltered from the view of anyone looking out from the opposite direction by a large bench resting in front of it. If anyone walked outside during that period, they might be able to see her from there, but none of the teachers at Winslow ever bother patrolling looking for truanting students.
You want to tell her she should be going to her History classes, but you don’t know if she’d take that well just yet. Instead, you settle for a simple, “I see.” Then you gesture down at the table, or more directly, at the mark she’s awkwardly trying to hide by placing her elbows on the table and leaning forward. It gives you a nice view down her shirt, but you’re more curious about the table. “What were you drawing?” you ask.
She stiffens for a moment, looking around, then relaxes. “Nothin’ serious,” she says dismissively, moving her elbow. “Just my name.” You take the implied permission and lean in to look. It’s definitely her name, but it’s not drawn in simple script. It looks—very similar to the graffiti scrawled over the halls of Winslow, in style of nothing else. Large, pop-out letters spelling ‘AISHA’, each letter growing from the one before it.
It actually looks really well-drawn. “It looks nice,” you compliment her. “Do you draw often?”
“Sometimes,” she says guardedly. “Why?”
You look down at it, hiding a frown. “No reason,” you reply. “I was just wondering. It looks nice.” You give her a smile, hoping to ease her ruffled feathers. It works, to an extent.
Luckily, before you can say anything else to set her on edge, Madison arrives, with Charlotte following her soon after. You pull out the lunch Madison has made for you today—a tuna roll with lettuce, tomato and grated cheese, wrapped inside turkish bread—and wait idly as everyone else gets out their lunches.
Before anyone can begin eating, though, you pull out your phone and place it on the centre of the table, drawing everyone’s attention.
“It’s nearly the school holidays,” you begin. “And I know I’m looking forward to not having to come to school every day.” Across the table, Aisha smirks at you, while beside you, Madison nods. Charlotte doesn’t react to your statement, instead demurely pulling out a small plastic tub from her bag, filled with grapes. “But I was thinking maybe we could get together over the holidays and do something. We could go to the carnival together, or something—I hear they’re supposed to be reopening then.”
“That sounds like fun,” Charlotte says wistfully. “I’m going to visit my uncle over the holidays, though. I’ll be gone from Monday to Friday.”
You look over at her, noticing the small frown on her face. “That’s okay,” you reassure her, giving her a smile. “We can figure out something—we could go during the second week of holidays, or we could go do something else together afterwards.” She blushes lightly at that, nodding. “I need everyone’s phone numbers if we want to set it up, though.”
“You already have mine!” Madison chimes up beside you. You pat her knee consolingly, nodding in acknowledgement.
Charlotte pulls your phone over, rapidly dialing in something on your keypad. Beside her, however, Aisha frowns.
“My phone bill doesn’t cover much,” Aisha warns you. “My brother covers it, but he doesn’t make a lot of money. I’m on one of the lowest plans, so I can’t talk much.”
“That’s okay,” you say brightly. “Just tell me if you can make it on a particular day or not.”
She nods slowly, taking the phone once Charlotte has finished with it. You tap Madison again, leaning in to whisper in her ear, “You should get their numbers too. Just in case.”
Once everyone has given each other their numbers, you take your phone back and give everyone another satisfied grin. It feels good to know that you can actually contact them now.
The rest of school passes by in a blur. Most of the teachers have essentially given up for the term; less than half the people in your class have even shown up today, and most of those who have turned up are just making paper airplanes and throwing them around the classroom.
You yourself clutch one of the airplanes in your hand as you walk off the bus that afternoon, heading home. Some of those paper airplanes had been surprisingly complex, creating little planes with folded noses and actual little tails and everything. You’d taken one of them as you’d walked out towards tutoring with Madison, idly throwing it around the library while Madison studied.
It’s a little after five when you walk into your house, tossing the airplane towards the trash can in your kitchen as you go. It misses wildly, veering up and over onto the kitchen counter, forcing you to walk over and pick it up so you can place it into the trash can properly. Damn it. Some of those kids had made throwing the airplanes look so easy.
You pull out your phone as you head over to your room and place your bag beneath your desk, then lift the phone and begin typing out a short message to Emma. ”Can you come over today? I need some help with something.” Then, while you wait for her to respond, you head back out to the kitchen.
Dad’s already put dinner on—just some chicken and frozen vegetables in the slow cooker, from what you can see. You don’t have time to investigate before your phone buzzes in your pocket, an appropriately prompt response from your friend. ”I can come over. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
You move over to the fridge and pull out the milk, tapping out a message as you go. ”It’s not urgent. Don’t hurry. Just come over some time today
” Then, once the message has been sent, you busy yourself by making a cup of coffee.
She doesn’t hurry, exactly, but she’s not slow either. By five to six, Alan’s car is pulling up in the driveway, allowing the two of them to climb out. You hurry out the front to meet them, giving Emma a big hug and stretching your power out over her. She’s not feeling as bad as she has been the last couple of times you’ve seen her, thankfully. Still, you reach in, maintaining a gentle grasp over the fronds of her happiness.
“Hello, Alan,” you greet her father. “Hello, Emma. Come in. Uh, Dad’s in the living room, Alan.” You pause for a second, then sheepishly admit, “I forgot to tell him you were coming over.”
He chuckles, giving you a small grin. “You should remember to tell your Dad that kind of thing,” he chides you. “Still, happy to come over. You said you needed help with something?”
“Yeah!” You release Emma from your hug, ignoring the light dusting of red over her cheeks, and grab her hand. “Come on, Emma! I need to show you something!”
You lead Emma down to the basement, flicking the light on as you go. She gives the empty room a curious look, then turns to you with a frown, ignoring the dust covering the room. “You needed to show me your basement?” she asks.
You nod enthusiastically. “Yeah!” You gesture expansively around the room, indicating the bare concrete walls and floor. “Um, well, kind of,” you amend. “Dad told me yesterday that I could have the basement as my new bedroom if I wanted, since my old bedroom is getting kind of small. But I’m… not really good at planning out rooms. I was hoping you could help me out.” You give her what you hope is a winning smile.
Emma glances at you, then off to the side. “What’s wrong with your old room?” she asks.
“It’s just kind of small.” You shrug dismissively. “I wanted a bigger room, you know?” Somehow, you don’t really want to tell her that you wanted a bigger bed. That seems a little too personal right now.
She nods anyway. “Okay. And you need my help with what?”
“With designing it, of course!” You fondly shake your head. “I’ve never been good at figuring out how to make places look good, Emma.”
Still, she hesitates. “Isn’t one of your Dad’s friends an interior designer?” she asks. “You could ask her.”
“I don’t want to ask her.” You pout sulkily at her. “I asked you over to help, not one of Dad’s silly friends.” You wave your arm dismissively. “You were always really good at this kind of thing. And—and I trust you to help me make my new room look more than I do any of Dad’s friends.” You nod firmly. Surprisingly, it’s true. Wrapped up in Emma’s emotions like this, feeling her happiness grow and sway as you tell her you trust her—it’s all too easy for you to believe your own words.
“A-Alright.” She coughs nervously, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. “Is your Dad buying you anything else, or do you only have the furniture in your room? It might be hard to decorate if you only have that furniture.”
“No, I’m getting some more furniture,” you say firmly. “Dad’s giving me the old bed he and Mom used to have, and I do have those bookcases. I want to get a bigger desk, though, and maybe some other stuff.”
Emma paces around the basement, eyeing it off. Watching her, you can’t help but feel a little thrill shoot through you.
When Emma gets involved in a task, she throws herself into it. This task is no different, except for one thing; every time she stops to think, she tosses her ideas out to you, getting your feedback on them. As she paces around the basement, examining the walls, her steps soon grow more energetic and her words grow more excited. Eventually, you just sit back on the basement stairs and watch her go, smiling contentedly and just offering up your thoughts whenever she asks you.
In the end, she determines you want four main parts to your room. First is the bed, obviously; that bit will go to the back of the room, where it’s least immediately visible from the stairs. You also want a study area—a long desk that can be pulled out from the wall, with seating for maybe four people. Then, you’d like a small seating area, maybe with a television there or something (“You won’t be getting a very good signal down here,” Emma tells you seriously as she studies your face, “but you could put a DVD player in, and maybe some game consoles or something, in case any of your girlfriends like to game.”), alongside your bookcases against the wall off to the right of the stairs.
Lastly, you’d like a clothing area. Emma hesitates at this one, giving you a sidelong glance. “… Do you really need a whole area for this one?” she asks. “You already have a wardrobe and a dressing table. Do you need more?”
You shrug. “I think I do.” You consider not elaborating for a moment, but she doesn’t inquire further, just waits patiently for you to continue. That’s enough for you to keep talking. “I want a place where all my girls can keep some clothing, too.” You watch her carefully. “In case anyone wants to spend the night.”
Her face falls, and you immediately begin tugging lightly—very lightly—on her happiness. It’s not enough to raise her mood, not really, but it does stop it from plummeting. “Oh,” she says simply. “I guess that makes sense.”
You’re going to need more than just the furniture, of course. The basement is made out of raw concrete, and while Dad and his friend will install a window, that’s not going to provide you with much light. There’s luckily a couple of power outlets down here already, so you won’t have to call in an electrician, but you’re going to need… aesthetics.
It’s nice to have a bedroom of your own, after all, but you refuse to have a cold, drab bedroom, even if it’s more than twice as large as your old room. You have standards. Just giving you more room isn’t enough for you.
Emma tosses in her own thoughts. “You probably don’t need much against this wall,” she says, pointing at the area your seating area is going to go. “Your bookcases should cover most of that wall, and they’re plenty colourful already. If you put some decorations on top, it should make things look nice. And over here, where you want to put your dressers—you could find a bigger mirror and put it over the dresser. That’ll help. It’s really the other two walls that you’re going to need to find something to cover them with. Maybe some posters, or something?”
