For three weeks now, Mephisto had been talking to the girl in front of him nearly everyday. Now that they'd talked, he looked forward to seeing her in class. As it turned out, Mr. Gramorr didn't mind his students talking as long as it was during work time. Auriana was usually the one to start up conversation, but to his surprise, he found himself enjoying her company.
Usually it was little things, like today Auriana was helping him with homework. She was in an advanced class for her grade, and had a much better grasp on the subject than he did.
"So for this problem, you just need to square both sides of the equation. That way you can find the zeros, and mark them on the graph. Does that make sense?" Unfortanately for him, no matter how many times she tried, he was still completely lost.
It must've showed because Auriana followed up with, "Sorry, I know I offered to help you, but I'm not really good at explaining things back to others. I guess knowing the material isn't enough to teach it."
Mephisto interjected her, "What are you talking about? You've been trying to help me when it's not even your responsibility. I should be the one apologizing."
She looked over at the clock, class was almost over. "It doesn't look like we have much time left anyways."
Unless...
The idea came to her mind so why not give it a shot? "What lunch period do you have?"
"I'm in first block, why?"
"So we have the same free period, what if we meet up then?"
"Oh, um" He wasn't sure what Praxina would say. They normally spent their free period together, but he also found himself wanting to go with Auriana. "Maybe, I'd need to tell Praxina first. I'm usually with her during free periods, and I wouldn't wanna leave her without warning. But maybe tomorrow?"
The bell rang and they gathered their bags, Auriana waved as she left, "See you then!"
~~
When the bell rang for lunch, Talia went to an empty table and kept an eye out for Brenda and Nathaniel.
Over the weekend, she, Iris, and Auriana had worked on the posters for play. They had come to school early that morning to put them all up. They seemed to be working because she saw a few students gathered by one at the entrance.
She saw Nathaniel first and tried raising her hand meekly to get his attention. He didn't seem to notice so she tried raising it higher. Still Nathniel stood in middle of the room scanning it for her and Brenda.
Now Talia raised her hand as high she could and waved it around in hopes of being seen. Still, no response-
"Haha, you look silly."
Talia spun around in her seat to see Brenda behind her. Her face flushed in embarrasment.
As if she could read her mind Brenda added, "I meant that in a good way. There's no need to be embarrassed about it. Though if you really wanted to get his attention, you could've just called him over. Like this,"
Brenda stood up, cupped one hand around her mouth, raised the other, and blurted out, "NATHANIEL!"
This time he saw their table, and turned toward them. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in the lunchroom based off of the laughter that ensued. Brenda sat down and laughed with them, so Talia felt comfortable enough to chuckle.
"Now we're both silly."
Talia was amazed, "You're not embarrassed? Everyone heard you."
"Not really, I mean, I was a little louder than intended, but nothing really embarrassing happened. Besides they've already moved on, do you still hear everyone laughing?"
Sure enough everyone had already moved on from Brenda's outburst.
"I guess not."
Nathaniel sat down with his tray, "Thanks Brenda. I don't know how I would've found you guys." While his gratitude was genuine, there was a sarcastic tone to his voice.
Brenda played along, "Anytime my friend, though how could you not have seen dear Talia here. How rude." She accompanied that last part with an overdramatic hand to the forehead.
Within once lunch period, Talia felt completely at ease around them. There was something special, and she didn't want to lose it.
~~
When she got home from school, Iris went to her room and grabbed her script. Even though there wasn't another practice for five days, she really wanted to drill her lines.
She had barely started when Aunt Ellen called from downstairs, "Iris? Are you free for a second?"
"Yeah! I'm coming!"
She rushed downstairs and saw that she was holding some kind of flyer. She handed it to Iris.
One of my friends at work was telling me about some music festival that's being put together here in the area next month. I thought you and your friends might like to go to something like that.
She looked down at the flyer, it was scheduled exactly one month from today. It seemed like it could be a lot of fun.
But what about the play?
Well, since it was still far away, she could play it by ear. If things were going better for them by that time, she could tell Talia and Auriana about it then.
For now she smiled at her Aunt, "Thanks Aunt Ellen! I'll definetly think about it."
"Well don't take too long, I think you need to reserve tickets the week before or something."
That wasn't as much time as she'd initially thought, but she wasn't planning to wait that long anyway. "That shouldn't be a problem. I'll sort it out by then!"
No problem at all.
~~