Daunting Truths

0: PROLOGUE

"Sure," is what I ended up saying anyway. Before I could take anything back, Ms. Adams broke out into a smile that stopped me.

"Great! I really need all the help I can get. Everybody is so excited to go to homecoming but it seems no one wants to help make it happen."

"Unfortunately," I said as I reluctantly followed her to the art room. When we got there, Ms. Adams told me to take a seat anywhere as she walked away to her desk. I awkwardly stood in the entrance of the room for a few moments as I quickly scanned the room for a safe place to sit down at.

I didn't want to sit by myself at an alone table but I also didn't want to intrude on anybody else's table.

"Uh, hey Audre, want to come sit over here?" Olivia spoke up. I looked up at her and nodded without hesitance. I quickly walked over to her table and took a seat next to her. My seat was across from a strange girl I've never seen before.

The strange girl had a really petite body frame. Her oversized sweatshirt engulfed her, making it almost seem like she was wrapped in a black blanket. Her long hair and side bangs framed her heart-shaped face.

I looked away fast when she began looking over to me. I pretended to have been staring at Ms. Adams—who was making her way up to the front of the classroom.

"Thank you all so much for helping with the homecoming committee. Now, first things first, we have a month to prepare this thing so we'll meet every Wednesday and Friday. First, we'll start off with making decorations," Ms. Adams explained. "I will give you all stencils you can use to make the decorations. Make them any colors you want and add any other customizations like glitter or simply details, you know the drill."

After Ms. Adams finished explaining the rest, she told us to get to work. Olivia practically jumped out of her chair as she went over towards the long desk at the end of the classroom, collecting the best materials before anybody else had a chance to take them and placed them at our table.

"Here's the stencils," Olivia said as she placed a small pile of stencils in the middle. I decided to grab some construction paper first before choosing my stencils. The girl in front of me went ahead and chose the stencils she wanted to work with.

It was quiet for a while until a sudden boy came barging into the art room.

"Hey Ms. A!" He said loudly the moment he stepped into the class. Everyone glanced at him for a second before they went back to work.

"Hey Blake, I thought you had practice today?" Ms. Adams responded from her desk. Blake made his way towards her, taking a few peeks at the tables he passed by. When he got to our table, Olivia and I both looked up at him. All three of us made eye contact for a moment, Blake's eyes flickering between us before continuing his quick stroll.

"Uh, no. I didn't," He said with a small chuckle. "So what's happening here?"

"Homecoming committee."

"Oh, that sounds cool," Blake said.

"Would you like to join? We are just making decorations using stencils," Ms Adams explained. She smiled gently at him, which probably meant they knew each other very well. Blake returned the smile.

"Sure, why not," Blake responded.

I went back to working on my decorations. I took a look at Olivia's progress and was surprised to see she already had a growing pile of decorations at her side.

Of course she does.

I looked over to the girl in front of me and noticed she also had started a pile but it was still relatively small. She seemed to be deeply concentrated on making sure every decoration was cut to perfection.