PART II - HELEN

It's been nearly a month of my last year of high school.

I was so occupied with everything that I didn't even realize how the weeks flew by.

Next to weekly theater rehearsals which required memorizing tons of lines, our teachers gave us tons of homework, the first partial exams are just around the corner. I had used the weekend to read through With The Fire On High and write an essay on the division of power for my political science class because both seemed more appealing than math homework.

We were eating lunch in the cafeteria, Jonathan, Jamie, Sofia, Alison, Miranda-with-the-older-boyfriend, and me.

"Have you done your math homework?" I asked Jonathan.

"What do you think?" He put his hands in the air and donned an imaginary crown on his head. "I'm the king of procrastination." He holds still for a few seconds with one of his hands clenched in a fist as if holding a scepter, the other one turned upwards as if holding an orb. Jamie slapped him on the back of his head.

"What did you just do to your king?" Jonathan demanded to know. It ended in a scramble of the two boys which I watched with a stressed lack of interest.

"What does that even mean?" Miranda asked, gesturing at Jonathan.

"I'll explain it to you later," I said and got up.

Sofia laughed out loud and I relished the great feeling of someone understanding my jokes. Even if this someone was Sofia. I looked at her a second too long, and she caught my eyes.

"Are you coming, Jonathan?"

The latter looked angrily at Jamie as he adjusted his imaginary crown. This guy.

Walking away I heard Miranda ask again and Sofia answered her question truthfully.

Jonathan bumped his shoulder into mine. "I saw that look. You like her."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm starting to tolerate her."

Thankfully, the student council counted as an elective course, and we only met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Which meant a free period which gave us forty minutes until the next class commenced.

I liked the library. Seldomly, anyone ever used it. There wasn't even a teacher present, just one or two seniors keeping the peace and quiet. Today, those two were Jenny Huang and Maria Thompson. They were discussing a flyer for the school's LGBTQ+ club.

"Helen, help us, please," Maria pleaded.

I signed Jonathan to go ahead and went over to the two girls. "Tell me."

"You see the difference between those two?" Jenny asked, "The font is slightly different, and we cannot decide which one's better."

For me, both flyers looked pretty much the same, but I made an effort to see it. With my eyes squinted, I could tell that one of the fonts was a tiny bit more cursive than the other. They read:

are you queer or questioning?

we create a safe space to talk about sexuality, identity, and safe sex.

join us! we meet on mondays at 3 p.m. room sc101

Under that, there were dates listed until Christmas, roughly every other week.

"I like this one better," Jenny pointed to the one on the right. "It's more–" She gestured with her hands until Maria took them and said: "Shh, babe, don't influence her."

"Why do you prefer the other one, Maria?" I asked.

She made an indistinctive mh sound.

"Ha! You don't know either."

Maria looked annoyed at her girlfriend. "Your explanation was this," she imitated Jenny's vague gesturing. I always liked the playful side of them, but it didn't exactly help this situation.

I pointed at the right one. "I agree with Jenny. This one's more buoyant."

"Thank you, Helen, you're a lifesaver," Jenny said while ignoring Maria's outstretched tongue.

"You're welcome." I gave both of them a quick hug and joined Jonathan in the back of the library. He looked up from his phone when he heard me sit down. There was a smile on his face he desperately tried to suppress.

"What is it?" I asked impatiently and well knowing it was probably Sofia. They texted a lot lately – well, everything was lately with Sofia. I can't wrap my head around how she managed to fit in so well in so little time.

"Nothing, just Sofia," Jonathan confirmed my guess.

I rolled my eyes. "Ask her out already!"

He spun his phone fidgety in his hand. "You think I should?"

"Just go for it, man." I looked down on my textbook to get started on the homework we came here for in the first place. "I'll do the odd numbers, you'll do the rest?"