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♪Sparkes Fly - Taylor Swift y̶e̶s̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶b̶s̶e̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶i̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶r̶e̶a̶d̶y♪

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A month had passed but not too much had changed other than my wrist was no longer in a sling, Xander and I were talking more and Nora was now one of my closest friends - turns out we had a lot in common. My photography project was still the same though.

I was sat on the same bench I'd waited for Xander on a month ago with my sketchbook on my lap, a biro in my hand. The page where I was supposed to have done a mind map was still blank. I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the charade that I was actually making progress. I wanted to ask for help but I knew I couldn't. Mum had never wanted me to take photography in the first place and I couldn't go to my teacher after this long, not when I was so far behind. I would be forced to drop it. Not that dropping it wasn't a good idea at this point.

I looked up as someone walked towards me and smiled when I saw it was Xander. He had changed out of his school clothes and was wearing a hoodie with a white t-shirt underneath it. Today was the day I was starting a sport. I had changed too. I wore a cropped hoodie, with the hood pulled up to protect myself from the chilly October air, and matching joggers that were keeping my legs warm.

He came and sat down next to me as I started mulling over ideas for my project again. He leaned over looking at the blank sheet of paper.

"Still no luck choosing a theme then?" He asked. I shook my head. I'd been complaining for the last month to my friends about my dilemma so he knew all about it. To be honest they're probably all pretty sick of it by now. "What were the themes again?"

"Identity/Obsession, Urban Space, Growth and Decay, Fears and Fascinations and Power of the Media."

"Why don't you do fears and fascinations?"

I looked up at him through my eyelashes, but my head was still tilted down towards my sketchbook. "What would I do for fears and fascinations?"

"Sport." I lifted my head to looked at him properly, dumbfounded.

"Sport?" I repeated. "Sport doesn't fascinate me...and I'm not afraid of it either."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Really? Then why are you reluctant to do it?"

"Because I'm bad at it," I said, starting to get defensive.

"But why should being bad at something stop you?" I lip my lip, trying to understand what he's getting at. "It's not the being bad at," He made air quotes around the words. "that's stopping you - it's the fear of people judging you for being bad at it."

I looked back down at my paper again. He was right. I wasn't scared of the sport itself but I was scared of the judgement. I didn't hate PE because falling over was painful, getting used to the pain is easy. The judgement was what would always haunt me and hold me back.

"What about fascination though?" I said, looking back up at him.

"Doesn't it fascinate you, at least a little bit, how someone can find something so easy when you find it so hard?" I thought about that for a moment and finally ideas formulating in my mind.

"Anyway," he said, bringing me back to reality. "We really should get going. I hope I helped." He smiled at me, putting his hand out to help me off the bench. I took it and got up and we started to walk. His house was only a few minutes away from the school so we didn't need to catch a bus or ask someone to pick us up.

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