The Shadow of Stars

Twelve

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"The article you wrote about the captains pre-game expectations was phenomenal Athena. The voice, the tone the construction of it was remarkable—many of my fellow teachers had great things to say about it. Everyone is very excited to see what the four of you can compose for the segment after the game this Friday."

It took everything in me not to wince at the smile on Miss Elignton's face, the pride.

"As team leader, I would like to second that. All of the work was great, Gia the new storyline in the comic was hilarious as well as those photos from football training," Jesminda says with a large smile and Finn coughs, making her roll her eyes. "And your piece on the petition to construct a new park in the lower socio economic parts of town was great as well."

The park they were building a block down from me.

"Now all we have to do is the game on Friday! Did you need a ride there Athena or is Micah going to take you? Oh, I also wanted to say that getting a pre-game interview from him would be awesome, if you interview him and I speak to the coach then we can co-write the article!"

Everyone looks at me, awaiting a response. "Um, uh yeah about that..."

"You are coming aren't you? You have to come," Jesminda cuts in, her tone dead serious.

"The thing is, I kinda have work that day and I don't think I'm going to be able to skip out on it," I state and the room goes silent, awaiting her explosion.

"Skip out on it? Athena this is very important. The first game of the season is something all students care very much about, if we screw this paper up then people might just loose interest all together," she lets out a huff of disbelief. "I mean not to mention your own mate is playing, how would he feel if you weren't there to watch?"

"Jess," Miss Elignton warns and I gulp.

"Its not about that, its just, well I—" My defensiveness falling to a loss for words quicker than I expected.

"Trouble in paradise?" Gia asks, tapping her pencil on the table with a mischievous smirk.

"No, I just need to help out my coworkers. Fridays are busy, you guys can probably do it just as good without me."

"Athena, is there no way you can miss one shift? This is very important for the paper, for your team members and it could be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss out on events like this during high school for work," Miss Elignton says with a kind smile and I don't know how to tell her its highly likely I'd have a better time at work.

"If you don't want to interview Micah, you can just set it up for me and you can speak with the coach," Jess suggests and I look at everyone, intent on me joining them.

I didn't think they would care that much about me attending. No one had really cared much for my presence in the past, so why the sudden need to start now?

"I'll see what I can do," I state, defeated and Jess smiles broadly, Finn amused at her antics while Gia just stares at me—her eyes contemplating. "But if its okay I'd like to maybe move on from writing articles about him after this game. It's just that I don't really want to bring that part of my life into this."

"It's fair enough, mixing business and pleasure never is a good idea," Finn comments, a grin on his face. I'm not sure pleasure is the right word.

"There is no problem with that, Athena. When it comes to any article, if it makes you uncomfortable or you'd prefer to not do it, just say in the future and we can prepare the article to fit in something else," Miss Elignton says kindly and I look to Jesminda who doesn't seem impressed.