Adorn

00:08

"Y'all already know our girl is, she gonna be the baddest one on the roster" Zay added. I sunk more in my seat forgetting that they were also on the cheer team. I never understood their hostility towards me when I've done nothing wrong.

They kept talking about homecoming and the parties that would surely follow in after hours. Last year, I stayed to myself during homecoming while Mika and Cierra went to all events. Back when we were the Iconic Trio.

"You popping out this year with us boo" Cierra said nudging my shoulder.

"You know Mani ain't with the ratchet hoe antics we be on" Natasha commented making a few laugh. "She good at staying invisible"

"The only thing she shake is those pages in those school books" Zay added. I knitted my eyebrows as everyone was laughing. Cierra rubbed my shoulder.

"This year is gonna be different, ain't that right?" By now I had eyes on me. I glanced around the cheer team feeling a little pressured to prove Natasha and Zay wrong.

"I'll go"

"It's gonna be lit as hell, I promise you" Quinn said towards me. I caught eyes with Natasha who simply rolled her eyes then whispered something towards Cierra.

♡ ♡ ♡

My pencil was moving fluently across the page as India Arie flowed through my headphones. I hummed along to the lyrics of Brown Skin as I concentrated on shading. One of the ideas I added for our short film is to have some art pieces. Since the main character will have the disease and can't talk, I thought it would be cool is she talks through her pictures.

Messiah was gonna play as the doctor and would list the causes of tetanus. Sandra had a minor role but was still an important factor for everything to turn out the way Julian saw it. Speaking of, he wrote all of the dialogue and will be in charge or recording and editing.

"Normani" I glanced up seeing Julian was jogging in this direction. I couldn't help my eyes from looking at the way his sweat glistened on his toned body. He halted to a stop by the bench I was occupying. He took one of his earbuds out.

"So you just like to run for fun?" He smiled shrugging.

"It helps clear my mind" he took a seat on my infamous bench. It was my comfort spot since there wasn't much foot traffic on this side of campus. "What you drawing"

"Oh I guess I should've ran it through you first, but I thought we could have the main character— well me to talk through her artwork for the video" I said.

"—but of course if you think it's stupid, we can scratch the idea" I spoke hesitantly. I don't know why I get flustered with my words so much around him. If this was anyone else I would simply ignore them or talk when I'm spoken too. However it was something about Julian that made me nervous.

Then after I was quick to judge him from our first encounters makes me anxious on not saying the wrong thing to him. "No I like it, that's a dope idea"

He gave me a smile. " May I?" I looked down at my sketch before hesitantly handing it to him. He was quiet as he flipped through a few of the pages. I fiddled with my ring as I look ahead of me.

"Damn, you can really draw for real" he muttered as he nodded his head in approval. "I know how you feel about sharing your artwork...."

He glanced up at me. "—you sure you're cool with this?"

"I'm positive, I thought it would be a cool addition" I reassured as he passed my sketchbook back.

"Um can I ask you something?" He leaned back as he took his other earbud out his ear.