Out of The Shadows

The Parent-Teacher Conference

1 Week Later

*NATHAN'S POV*

Alysha's behaviour has calmed down a fair bit and has almost completely stopped regressing. She had an extra day off last week just so she could calm down and try to get back to her normal self as much as she could before she returned to school. Now it was a week down the track of recovery and the night before the parent-teacher conference. I was itching to know what she's been up to in class but I doubt there will be anything bad said. The only thing I am worried about is her Math teacher Mr Ripley; he doesn't seem to be one of those teachers who are genuine about what they say to and about their students. I've had teachers like that when I was at school and it's not a nice experience.

"Nathan?" Snapping me out of my thoughts and dragging my eyes off of the football match I had been watching on TV. She stood in the entrance in her uniform with her school bag still on her back having just got back from school.

"Yeah?"

"I want to show you something." She said smiling. She walked towards me and held out a black A4 display folder.

I muted the TV and took the folder from her. She said she was going to change and will come back down. I nodded and opened the folder. The first plastic sleeve had a piece of paper that said 'Photographic Process Diary ∼ By Alysha Sykes'. The fancy curly font was written in black inside a border with purple butterflies. I turned over and saw one of the assessment notifications that gets given out for every assignment whether it be an in-class exam or something you have to hand in. As I read over it I saw that it was a theory exam. I pulled it out and flicked to the back page so that I could see her mark. She got a B- which made me extremely happy. I slid it back into the sleeve and flicked over. I saw a handwritten paper labelled 'Theory exam paper'. Not bothered reading over what she wrote for the task I continued to flick through the display folder when I came across another assessment notification. This was for a practical. I skimmed over it and decided I'd look at what she did before I saw the mark. I turned over the page and saw a heap of planning. There were tables, sketches, idea plans, a tonne of annotations and notes. I counted at least four pages of planning. Then I came to what looked like progress screenshots of what she must have been doing on Photoshop at school. They all looked amazing and I was shocked when I saw the final product. It was a series of nine photos. Each one was printed out on 8x10 glossy photo paper and glued onto a piece of black card, slotted into their own individual sleeves.

Mesmerized by how much work would have gone into each of these photos and I wondered how long it took her to do each image. The ninth image was the photo I said was my favourite that night after I had gotten back from the states and she was showing me various different photos. I flicked back through the images and noticed most of the images looked familiar. Then I turned back to the last photo. It was definitely my favourite. I grinned and went back to the notification and checked her grade. She got an A. I couldn't help the massive grin that was plastered on my face. I was ecstatic for her. She's put a lot of work into this and it's obviously paid off.

"So I'm guessing by the smile on your face you're happy?" Alysha said. I looked up and saw her standing in the doorway in black cargo pants and a mint coloured t-shirt that had 'Unicorn Queen' written across the front under a rainbow. The shirt was one of the many unicorn shirts she had. She had at least ten different shirts and two pyjama sets with unicorns on them. It was ridiculous.

"I'm very proud of you baby" I said putting the display folder on the coffee table and went up to her, wrapping my arms around her smiling. She hugged me back. When we pulled away I saw how happy she looked; she was like a little kid on Christmas. It was good to see her so happy, especially after everything that happened with Jess. And she definitely deserves the little surprise I have in stall for her.