Sammy was quite explicit to Lane that she didn’t want her campaign posters to cover up anyone else’s. She said a lot of work went into all the posters, and it would be a shame to selfishly make all that effort invisible. The issue was that the only spot on the bulletin board left was near the very top. Lane stretched their hand out as far as it could go. The poster slipped from their grasp, but instead of falling down, the poster floated perfectly into place, followed by the pin, sticking it to the board.

Lane looked down from the poster, spotting a girl with dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail, her long bangs falling flatteringly around her face. Lane had to look up just a little to meet her eyes. 

“Oh, thanks, um, Riley.”

“No problem.”

“Done with yours?”

“Yep.”

“Me too.”

“What’s next?”

“Just the banner thing, I think.”

They made their way back to the after school base of operations for Sammy’s campaign, pushing open the squeaky door into the small classroom with a lot of desks and too few chairs. It was littered with poster paper, scissors, markers, streamers, all kinds of craft material scattered around its desks, and smelled of glue sticks. They sat down at the desks they had pushed together, and Riley brought over the large sheet of paper.

Lane felt a little uneasy around Riley. She was being nice enough, and Sammy said she was a friend, but Riley was quite conventionally pretty and came off to Lane as fairly normal and well-adjusted if a bit blunt, all of which Lane found kind of intimidating. Riley’s somewhat flat tone of voice also proved difficult for Lane to get a read on how she felt about them. 

“So, Sammy is trying to portray herself as someone who represents all the freshmen, rather than just a good leader, so I was thinking we draw her kind of among the crowd, like she’s an equal or whatever.”

“Oh, that sounds actually really good!”

“Don’t sound so surprised, now.”

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. I was joking.”

Lane tried to laugh a little, but very little came out. They put their head down and quickly sketched out Riley’s idea.

“Something like this?”

Riley stood up to get a better view of it, she stared at it long enough that it made Lane nervous.

“This is good.”

She tilted her head side to side.

“You’re a pretty good artist.”

“You think?”

She sat down and pulled out a marker from a nearby box of assorted colors.

“Yeah, just let me do the lettering.”

They sat there for a while, tracing the sketch in marker, coloring in areas that needed it. Lane kept stopping, pushing their hair away from their eyes before going back to drawing, but each time it flopped back over, dragging on the paper. Riley kept watching Lane do it over and over, it made it difficult for her to focus. She put her marker down.

“Lane, stop for a moment,” Riley said, rummaging through her bag. “When was the last time you got a haircut?”

“I guess I am kinda overdue…” Lane said, still fiddling with a piece of their bangs.

“Hold still.”

Lane closed their eyes, bracing themself. They felt Riley’s hands in their hair, carefully arranging it out of their face, securing it with bobby pins. Riley moved back, and Lane opened their eyes. Riley was staring intensely.

“Hmm…”

“R-Riley?”

Riley moved back into her seat.

“Lane, why are you always hiding your face? You’re always under that hoodie, or behind all that hair.”

“I, uh…”

“You’re actually really pretty.”

Lane’s entire face turned red, they buried their face in their hands. Their skin felt like the surface of the sun.

“Oh, sorry, is that not okay to say?”

Lane made a tiny noise. They took a deep breath. 

“It… It’s ok, I don’t mind being called pr… that.”

Riley blinked, then smirked.

“What? Have you never been called pretty before?”

“Eep.”