3

"Hey, wake up." Penny's voice was the first thing that Nathan heard. She was standing beside his bed, arms crossed as one of her legs slowly lifted off of the ground. "Hurry up. You overslept." Gently pushing him with her foot, Penny sent her brother tumbling off of his bed and onto the floor, much to his annoyance.

"Ugh. What time is it?" He asked; rubbing the sleep from his eye with one hand as the other pushed his body up off of the ground. He looked over at a clock in his room, seeing that he had overslept by 10 minutes. He scrambled to get onto his feet, running past his sister and into the bathroom. Penny stood walked around his room for a while, fingers drifting over the multiple photos that littered every surface. Some were his drawings, others were scraps of his failed projects, and the rest were framed photos.

"Why are they all here?" She muttered to herself as she went out of the house and waited for both her brother and the bus. Both arrived not long after, and they went to their usual spot. "So, what's your class planning for the big day?" Turning her head toward towards him, she found him in his usual pose with his headphones over his head.

"I… uhh, have to decorate stuff. I don't really know what they have planned." He replied, looking down at his bag before he pulled out a notebook. Penny looked at the latest drawing inside of it, a sketch of a classroom with streamers hung around the room. "I don't have any other ideas." He said, sighing as he leaned back into his seat. Before Penny could say anything in response, something got both of their attention.

"The bus usually doesn't stop here; is someone new joining?" Penny wondered aloud as the door opened up earlier than usual, letting a girl with brown hair aboard. She looked at the empty interior of the bus, eyes stopping at the only other occupants of the vehicle. "Hello?" Penny waved at her with a smile, but her eyes were fixated on Nathan even as she took the seat behind the two siblings.

"Nathan, right? How are the decorations coming along?" She asked, stretching up as much as she could in order to look at him. Nathan turned around, his face expressionless.

"I hung up the streamers, but I'm out of ideas. Susan and Nick haven't given me any either." He said, staring at the sketch in his hands as he grumbled loudly. "Do you have anything, president?" He lifted up his notebook, much to the surprise of his sister. Stacy looked at, shrugging with her shoulders as the bus started moving again. With a shake of her head, she ended the conversation; sitting back down for the rest of the ride to school. The two of them made their way to the classroom, finding it empty much like the previous day. "Why'd you only join the bus today?" Nathan asked as he set his things down.

"Hmm? Oh, my parents are going away for a while. I'll probably be riding on it for a few weeks. Why are you asking?" She replied, walking around the empty room as she looked at the decorations that were put up. Nathan shrugged, walking over to the rest of the decorative supplies they had at their disposal. "What if we had glitter or confetti or something?" Stacy suggested, looking at the bottom of the box.

"It'd be hard to clean, and it doesn't really last long after we've used it up." Nathan argued, taking some card stock back to his desk as he pulled out a pencil and started drawing something on it. "For now, what have you and the others thought of? Our class has to do something, right?" He looked up, seeing a smile on her face as she went off to show him her notebook.

"Here's what we have so far. We're putting it to a vote." Flipping it open to a page near the back of the notebook, Stacy outlined a list of things that they could do. Some students offered to play music, others wanted to run a photo booth with costumes, still others wanted to give out baked goods; the class was all over the place. "What do you want?" She asked earnestly, taking a seat beside him.

"I don't really care; I'm probably not even going to participate anyway…" Nathan mumbled, looking at the page again. It was neat, every item put in line with bullets all equidistant from each other. Her letters were clear and crisp; almost painstakingly so. He looked up at her, noticing that she was still waiting for an answer. "But if I had to make a choice, I'd go with the music." He said, reaching into his bag for his headphones. Stacy took a few steps back, walking toward her seat before pausing.

"You know, you should speak up more." She said, putting her things back in place. "You were so quiet last week, but you're actually pretty nice to talk to."

"Talking to people isn't really something I'm good at. I tend to worry too much." Nathan replied, putting down his pencil. "Frankly speaking, I want to be alone." He added, watching her take a seat and turn around to look at him.

"Well, we can't have that. That's probably why Nick set you up to decorate with him." Things went silent for a few minutes after that. Nathan went back to drawing designs for cutouts that he'd place around the room, while Stacy pulled out one of their textbooks and started reading.

"Where does Nick go during our breaks? He didn't help me yesterday." Nathan asked, running out of space on the card stock. He reached into his bag, rummaging around before he pulled out a pair of scissors. Stacy stopped her reading, setting the book down before she looked back at him.

"Oh, he's usually with his friends. You could always go to him during lunch and ask him to help." She put the book back into her bag as the door opened up. Susan walked in alone, eyes instantly darting over to Nathan before she looked over at Stacy. She gave them a wave, taking her seat and placing her bag on her desk. Nathan looked over at her, noticing at her hands were actually inside of her bag as she played her game again. He coughed loudly, getting her attention and showing her a pair of scissors.

"Oh?" Susan walked over, taking the scissors from him as he got another pair. The two of them cut out the decorations as the class slowly filled up. They got through around half of the drawings before the teacher arrived and got the class settled down. The first order of business was the vote that Stacy mentioned earlier; the class settled on the music, decided with three votes. With that done, they went about the rest of the morning as they did the day before. Nathan kept glancing toward Susan, seeing her play her game in class with her phone hidden in her bag. He sighed.

"… I shouldn't be doing this." He mumbled to himself, looking down at his desk as he rummaged for something in his bag. The first bunch of subjects flew by, leaving them on their first break for the day. He spent his time cutting out the rest of the decorations, looking around at the students inside of the room with him. Aside from Stacy reading at her desk, and Susan who was talking to her circle of friends, he didn't really talk to anyone else in the room. He looked down at the cutouts he had piled up on his table. "I can't put all these up by myself, but…" His eyes wandered over to Susan's group of friends. She was supposed to help him, so it was fine to call her away from them.

Nathan got up, taking a few breaths before he started walking toward them. Susan looked up at him, giving him a wave as he waved back. His legs kept moving, his hand reaching for the knob on the door as he left the room, silently cursing himself in his mind. He thought that it'd be too awkward for him to just come back in after only a few seconds, so he decided to go look for Nick with the rest of the time he had.

"Where is he?" He wondered aloud as he walked around for five minutes. He'd been to the cafeteria, outside on the yard, and to the school library, but he still found no sign of Nick. He sighed, deciding to head back to the room.

"Check mate." Nathan stopped in his tracks as he heard Nick's voice from the room to his right. It was the room from another class in their year; mostly empty much like his class's room. He took a peek inside seeing Nick seated at a table with a few people around him, a chess board being the main thing that drew everyone's attention. He was tempted to knock; tempted to call his attention so that they could get started. But he couldn't bring his hand up. He sighed, returning to the classroom and putting up the decorations on his own until their break was over.

He couldn't focus on the lessons for the next chunk of classes. He kept muttering things under his breath, of how that was pathetic, or of how easy it should have been. It was just a simple conversation, but he couldn't start it. A lump formed in his throat until the bell for their lunch break rang. Unlike last time, the room was almost completely barren. "Might as well do as much as I can…" He thought, taking a portion of the cutouts and walking around the room.

"Are you by yourself again?" Stacy asked, looking over at his desk. "That's going to take some time, are you sure you want to do this alone? You should call Nick, at least."

"It's… troublesome." Nathan replied, getting up on a chair in order to place them higher. "It's hard to walk up to him and talk to him, you know. I'll probably look like a weirdo." He shrugged, laughing a bit of anxiety away as a frown formed on the president's face. She waited for him to get down, snatching the cutouts away from him before she pushed him out into the hall.

"He should still be finishing up his food by now, go get him to help out." She said sternly. The two of them entered the cafeteria, finding Nick with his friends from before. Stacy was right in the fact that he was done with his food. He was playing chess again, and it looked to be a close match to Nathan's eyes. He felt a gentle nudge from behind him. "Go."

Reluctantly, he took a few steps toward the group before he froze again. His hands started trembling as his feet slowly started to shuffle backward. You know… I think I'll be fine on my own." He said, looking at Stacy as she pushed him forward until the two of them were at Nick's table.

"Oh, hi." Nick said, waving to them before returning his attention to the board. Nathan felt another nudge from Stacy as he thought of the right things to say.

"Hey, do you mind helping me decorate?" He asked, getting a look of genuine shock from Nick. He said bye to his friends, walking with Nathan and Stacy back to the room.

"Sorry, I forgot. Hey, are you okay?" He said, looking over at Nathan's slightly red face. His breathing was slightly off.

"Yeah… I'm fine. Let's just go." Nathan replied, walking slightly faster than the other two in order to end the conversation early. He got back to the room, taking the cutouts and hanging them around the room. They managed to get through it all before the next bell rang. Nathan felt exhausted for the last few classes, unable to focus on what was being said. He left the room first once they were let out, heading over to the tree in order to organize his thoughts.

"Are you really okay?" Stacy walked up to him, taking a seat beside him.

"Yes. Why are you here?" Nathan asked, already panicking slightly.

"We take the same bus; might as well wait for it together." She said, looking at the other students walking out of the building. "What happened to you during lunch?"

"I just get really nervous around people I don't really know." He mumbled.

"Even me?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Sorry, I guess. But I did mean what I said earlier." She got up, dusting off her clothes. "You really should talk more. It's nice talking to you. It's nice to talk with a friend like you." She said, waving him goodbye and walking away to give him some room to breathe. He took the time he had to himself to look in his bag, finding something that he'd forgotten about after everything that happed.

"Susan." He called out after finding her alone, playing her game by her locker. "Take these." Nathan pulled out a copy of the notes he took that morning. "I noticed that you had trouble in class, so I thought these might help." He said, walking away before she had the chance to refuse. He turned the corner, running back outside of the building as he saw Nick leave with a different group of people. He didn't have time to think about it, not like he wanted to anyway. The bus ride home went by in a blur, he didn't really notice Penny or Stacy talking to him due to the things that were running through his mind. He got into bed and collapsed onto his pillow, falling asleep almost instantly.