It’s Friday. The last day of the school week, which is only three days long anyway because it’s just the start of the year, but still. I don’t have to go through hell for two whole days.

Elena and I sit silently in our algebra class, our desks together, as we’re in the same pair, and we listen to Mr. Canon drone on about how to write interval notation.

Suddenly, an idea pops into my mind.

Rummaging through my backpack, I pull out a fresh pack of blue sticky notes, unopened. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I open the pack, but it still ends up being loud. Great. Of course I had to choose to open this when everything goes quiet.

Elena chuckles softly to herself when the plastic over the sticky notes rips off particularly loudly. Shut up. I mouth to her, and while she does stop laughing, she still has a grin on her face.

Once the sticky notes are unwrapped, I click open my blue pen and begin scribbling down a note.

Wanna come over to my house this weekend?

Peeling off the note from the rest of the stack, I pass it over to Elena when Mr. Canon isn’t looking. We sit more towards the front, so we have to be careful not to get caught. I heard that Mr. Canon is quick to anger when his students are distracted.

Elena holds the note in her hands, its pale blue a stark contrast to her pale skin, yet it compliments her skin at the same time.

Elena steals a glance at me, raising an eyebrow, and a smile creeps across her face.

Hurriedly writing her answer, Elena passes the note back to me.

Sure!

Yes! I practically squeal in my head. I don’t know why, but I’m very excited to have her come over tomorrow. Sure, I get excited whenever any of my friends come over to hang out, but…never this excited, I don’t think.

Unfortunately, just as I’m grabbing another sticky note to write another note to pass onto Elena, Mr. Canon catches me, and gives me a stern look.

“Adelia. Stop passing notes around. Focus up here.” He taps on the ActivBoard, on which three practice problems are displayed. “I know you must be excited to see your friends after not seeing them all summer, but this is a learning environment, not a social place.”

Sighing, I return my attention back to the ActivBoard and I begin to write down the problems on a sheet of graph paper in my notebook, leaving the note unfinished.

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

“I’m excited to see all of the clubs this school has to offer!” Elena exclaims as we make our way to the media center instead of having lunch. Clubs Day also happens to be today, which is a little too early in the school year in my opinion, but whatever,

Walking into the media center, Elena seems to be in shock.

“What? It’s just a little library hangout place,” Sarai comments, noticing Elena’s facial expression as well.

“But I’ve never been here before! It’s so cool. My school back in Romania didn’t have this.”

I mean, I kind of get why she thinks it’s cool. I remember on the first tour I went on for this school, in eighth grade, one of the first places we visited was the media center. Back then, it seemed like some sort of magical place, but not a magical place for mystical creatures; a magical place where knowledge could be found was what it was like, with the bookshelves, which stood in front of nearly every wall, being filled to the brim with books. A place with lots and lots of knowledge.

Not only is it a place of knowledge; there’s also a comforting sense to it as well, since the chairs are cushioned and have small tables attached to them where people can do their work. There are also desks with desk chairs, but the comfy seats are more popular.

Entering the media center, a lot of the comfy chairs have been cleared to make space for more tables, where many posters are being displayed, one or two presenters by each poster, with a handful of minglers at each poster. I know immediately which poster I want to go to.

“Where are we going?” Elena questions, taking in her surroundings.

“The GSA poster,” I reply, not turning around to meet her eyes. I’m just set on making it over there as quickly as possible.

“What’s the GSA?”

“You’ll see.”

The GSA poster is located towards the back, by the rooms, where students go in groups to study in a more quiet environment.

“Adelia! Hi!” Amanda, the girl manning the GSA poster, exclaims.

“Hi!”

“Brought a new friend, I see?” She looks Elena up and down.

“Yeah. This is Elena. She’s new,” I reply, pointing at Elena, who is standing next to me, shifting her legs uncomfortably.

“Nice to meet you! Are you interested in joining our silly little alliance?”

Elena perks up at the word alliance. “Alliance? I thought these were all clubs.”

Amanda chuckles, undoing and redoing her strawberry blonde ponytail. “Yeah, it is a club. But we call it an alliance because GSA stands for Gender and Sexuality Alliance.”

“Oh. So that’s what it is,” Elena mutters to herself. She looks at me, then at Sarai and Mari. “So…I hope you don't mind me asking this, but are you guys…queer?”

“Yeah, I’m a lesbian,” I reply first, running a hand through my hair. I styled my bangs especially nicely today; I wanted to look good, which is weird, because I don’t usually care about how I look when I’m at school.

“I’m queer. Mari is boring. They’re aroace.” Sarai points at Mari, who is standing in mock shock, their mouth hanging wide open.

“Um, no! Excuse me, I am not boring,” Mari scoffs, making animated gestures with their hands. “You are Sarai because, despite the fact that you’re queer, you can’t pull anyone of any gender.”

“Damn, you don’t need to expose me like that,” Sarai whispers.

“Don’t call me boring then,” Mari shrugs.

“Oh,” is all Elena says at first in response to us coming out to her. “Well, I’m happy you guys trusted me enough to tell me. I promise not to tell anyone. While I don’t belong in the same boat as you guys, I do support.” Elena does an awkward thumbs-up.

Amanda shifts, clearing her throat. “You can still join if you want! We just want to keep the homophobes and transphobes out,” she mutters, rolling her pale blue eyes.

“Ah, okay! I’ll consider joining!”

We move on from the GSA poster after getting some pride flag stickers with the school logo on them, and wander around, looking at other clubs.