68. The Presentation

-Sky-

Where did the time go? It felt like it was ages ago when I started at this school. It was barely four months ago, but it felt more like two years to me.

I grabbed the big file from my bed and put it in my bag, feeling nervous. Max and I had the presentation about owls today. Our project was ready, and today was our turn to show the whole class what we had discovered. I dreaded the thought of standing in front of everybody. I would make a fool out of myself.

I made sure I had everything with me when I exited my room to grab breakfast. I was happy to see my ankle was almost fully healed – I could feel a small jolt of pain going through it only when I was walking down the stairs. I didn't have my splint on anymore.

I stopped to take a deep breath at the bottom of the stairs. Dad happened to step out of the kitchen at that moment, and he stopped to stare at me.

"What is it this time?" he asked, trying to hide a smile.

I tried to take another deep breath, but it was futile. I knew I had the creepiest smile on my face again – the one Luke was afraid of.

"My ankle is healed," I tried to speak slowly. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"And you're grinning like a maniac because...?"

"The camping trip is next week," I spoke, my entire body shivering from excitement. "With you and Max and Mom and it's going to be so awesome!!" I may have lost my self-control somewhere in the middle of my sentence.

Dad started to laugh and came to give me a hug. "That's right! I can't wait! And the game is this Friday! How's the boys? Do you think they've had enough practice?"

"Of course," I said. "More than enough, in my opinion..."

He laughed lightly. "That's what you get for dating an athlete – long hours at the side of the football field."

I nudged him on his side. "You'd be thrilled in my shoes," I chuckled, and continued my way to the kitchen.

"You're not wrong," he laughed. "I'll have to get going now – have a great day at school!"

I turned to tell him bye and waved at him when he opened the door. Then I stepped into the kitchen, where Mom was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.

"Good morning," we said at the same time, and I went to sit in front of her.

"Are you nervous?" she asked, like she didn't already know the answer. I'd spent the entire yesterday evening ranting about how much I feared the presentation.

"A bit," I replied.

She laughed at my reply with a knowing look on her face. "It will go just fine," she said reassuringly. "As long as Max does his part..."

"Mom..." I sighed. "Max is a great guy."

"I'm sorry – that was mean of me," she said, looking genuinely apologetic. "I just hate the fact that you're growing up. I don't want you to grow up."

"But I will," I said quietly. "It's what life is all about."

"Sadly," she sighed. "Just don't go participating in any adult activities, okay? And I mean ever."

I rolled my eyes, but laughed. "I can't make that promise."

She looked at me like she wanted to whoop my ass.

*****

I tried to control my smile when I stepped onto the school bus and spotted Troy and Luke at the back. They were deep in their conversation with Troy waving his hands while he explained something with a big grin, and Luke listened with a smile on his face. They made such a cute couple, but I was worried people would also see what I saw.

"Hey guys," I said when I sat down sideways in front of them, so I could see them.

"Heyy," Troy smirked. "Are you nervous?"

I groaned lightly. "Please don't remind me – I'm terrified."

"It'll go great," Troy said. "Trust me. You just focus on the owls and you'll be fine. Once you start talking, you probably forget who's listening."

I grinned. "You're probably right. But you're so lucky – you guys already had your presentation."

"Oh lord, don't remind me," Troy groaned and leaned back in his seat. "It was a disaster..."

"It was great! You guys really did well!" I praised him, but he just shook his head.

"Yeah, in between dropping my papers three times and head-butting Moira almost unconscious, it went super," Troy muttered.

Both Luke and I looked out of the window when Troy mentioned Moira. I nearly started laughing when I remembered Moira dropping on her knees, holding hands over her head and bursting in laughter. Something had gone wrong on the laptop they were using, and they both hurried to fix the problem, only to collide head-first into each other. Troy – the football player he was – had been almost unaffected by the hit, and he just stood there staring at her when she started laughing.

"At least Moira isn't mad at you," I smirked. "She thought it was funny."

"Well, she's weird..." Troy muttered.

Max joined us a moment later, and I felt a happy twitch going through me when he laid his eyes on me.

"Hey," I breathed out, when he sat next to me. "I hope you're not nervous."

He just shrugged, giving me a smile. "You mean the presentation? It will be just fine."

I was jealous of his calmness. It didn't seem to bother him at all that we had to speak in front of our class for fifteen minutes! I was getting nasty jolts in my stomach whenever I even thought about it.

"The game is in two days," Troy said out loud, and I turned to glare at him. We were not supposed to talk about it today! I knew he did that on purpose!

"Oh God..." Max groaned, leaned back in his seat, and turned white as a sheet. "Thanks, Troy, for reminding me."

"No problem, bro," Troy smirked, and patted his shoulder.

Okay, the reason why Max was so calm about the presentation was the game. Every time someone mentioned it, he turned into a strengthless ghost. It was far more scarier to him than the fifteen-minute speech. I felt bad for him. People seemed to treat him as some sort of hero who could single-handedly win the whole game – my father being the worst of them – so he was under a lot of pressure.

"Let's talk about something completely else," I said, taking Max's hand in mine. He gave me an appreciative smile and squeezed my hand.

"Okay. How's your SAT coming along?" Troy asked Luke, and it was now his turn to let out a frustrated groan.

"Maybe not about that," I said, giving Troy a stern glare. "I want to know what kind of ice cream you guys like," I spoke, saying the first thing that popped into my head.

"Chocolate," Max said, going along with my change of topic so smoothly I fell for him once again.

"Ice cream?" Troy spoke slowly, and I could tell Luke was all ears. "Do I have to choose? I love a lot of things," he then chuckled.

"Sure, sure. Luke?" I turned to look at him.

"I don't like sweets," he said.

"Why am I not surprised?" I giggled. "You have like zero fat in your body!"

Oh, I received a look from Troy. That look. That 'you back off now' kind of look.

And then I realized I was receiving a certain look from Max as well. The 'excuse me?' one.

"Am I fat?" Max asked, looking down at his body. "Do I need to lose weight?"

"Of course not!" I hurried to say in shock. "Are you kidding me?"

He just shrugged. "I don't know."

I just stared at him. He was the last person to think about such things! He was like the ultimate hotness sent to brighten up the world!

"Max, you don't need to lose weight!" I told him sternly. "You are more than perfect as you are!"

"I was kidding," he said with a smile, squeezing my hand again. "You know I don't pay much attention to things like that."

I smiled as well, but I couldn't shake the worry I suddenly felt. I just wasn't convinced. He had self-esteem issues, just like everyone else, but it was still a shock to see him, the king of the school, so insecure. Scratch that, when I first saw Max, Troy, Luke, and their little gang of friends, I saw them as untouchable, unbreakable superheroes or something. But now, when I looked at them, I could see past the shiny images they had built around themselves to hide the fact that they were, in fact, just regular, fragile teenagers.

I leaned against Max's side and rested my head on his shoulder. "I think you're absolutely gorgeous," I told him quietly.

I knew he was blushing without even looking at him.

*****

And then the dreaded time came. The presentation.

I was so nervous about talking in front of the class that my brain completely ignored our teacher when he called for me and Max to come in front of the class and start the presentation.

"Sky? It's our turn," Max whispered.

My stomach almost took a hike at that point. I could feel how my organs tried to escape my body. It was that bad. And it got even worse when I stood up and started marching to the front of the room, only to realize halfway there that I hadn't brought any of our stuff with us. I quickly turned red before turning around to go help Max.

"I can't do this," I muttered to Max.

"It'll be fine," he said, giving me a bright smile, and I almost forgot to be nervous when his eyes were sparkling at me.

Then, he turned away and my stomach was trying to flee the scene again.

"Oh, God..." I breathed out and grabbed a pile of notecards we had prepared earlier.

Our teacher had our presentation ready on his laptop, so all we had to do was get started. I was still at loss to how to use the presentation program, but thankfully, Max was more familiar with it, so we had decided he was in charge of dealing with it, while I'd do most of the talking. But, of course, at that moment as I looked around the full classroom, I really wished I had taken the time to learn how to use the program.

"Mother of mercy," I muttered, and lowered my gaze down to the pile of notecards to avoid looking at anyone.

"You may start whenever you're ready," our teacher said with an encouraging smile, and went to sit down in my seat in the middle of the room.

I took the deepest breath of my entire life and turned to look at Max, who flashed another smile at me. I felt braver knowing he was there with me. I was fairly sure I couldn't have stood there without hyperventilating if it wasn't for his presence.

I turned my attention back to the class once Max was ready with the laptop. I was so nervous I could hardly even breathe, but the faster we would be done, the faster it would be over, so I took one last deep breath.

"Hi," I began timidly, and shortly looked down at the notes. "Our subject is the barn owl, and we'd like to share all the things we discovered about this beautiful bird with you."

Okay, good, everything was going exactly how we rehearsed. I felt like an idiot when I spoke, but I kept talking.

"The Latin name of our subject is Tyto Alba, and is part of the barn owl family, Tytonidae."

And then it happened. The thing Troy had expected to happen. I started to get excited talking about the owls, and as I continued, it became less and less scary to speak to our audience. I guess it also had something to do with the fact that everyone was listening, or at least pretending to listen. No one interrupted me, no one made fun of me, nothing.

And I sure loved talking about animals.

The barn owl. Tyto Alba of the Tytonidae family. There are said to be at least three major lineages of barn owl, and approximately twenty-eight subspecies throughout the world, and the pair we were studying was part of the American barn owl lineage. Most of these birds are between thirteen and fifteen inches tall with a wingspan ranging from thirty-one inches to thirty-seven inches. Their colors vary from different shades of brown and gray with white or brown bellies, feet, and heart-shaped faces. They mostly eat small mammals, mate for life, lay clutches of four or five eggs in hollow trees or in abandoned buildings, and are spread nearly everywhere in the world. The life-span expectancy for a wild bird is around four years if they survive their first winter, when starvation is the biggest threat for the youngling, but they can live up to even twenty years in captivity. One of the fun facts about these birds is that they don't actually hoot, they let out screeching sounds.

Another fun fact about these birds was that Max and I ended up together because of them. But that I didn't tell our audience.

Max had to stop me at some point to take the cards away from me, since I had completely forgotten he was supposed to do some talking as well. I was just on a roll already, and I hardly even remembered I was talking to a room full of people.

When Max spoke, I kept my eyes on him. He had a charming smile on his lips the entire time he spoke. His long hair was free to flow down on his shoulders like a sea of golden-brown leaves, and his scent was as thrilling as ever. I forgot to listen to what he was saying when I stared at him – I just listened to his velvety voice.

My boyfriend. It was safe to say I fell in love with him once again. This project brought us together, and I was really sad it was coming to an end now. We still had a video to show to our classmates, and Max put it on once he had finished sharing his part of the presentation, and we turned to watch it from the canvas.

Freddy had helped us to edit the video, and we had combined our best shots and footage into a two-minute video. It really was great, and our beloved little birds were shining like the movie stars they were, giving us their best poses and even letting us capture some footage of their babies.

And when it ended, I let out a content sigh, feeling calm and happy.

"So, that's what we found out about these two," Max said. "Thanks."

We got pretty kind applauses, while our teacher walked to us with a big grin.

"That went really well! Very nicely done!" he praised us, before letting us return to our seats.

I was so happy the presentation was over, but at the same time I felt like I had lost something. It wasn't true, of course. We could always go back to visit the farm whenever we wanted. Max even wanted to go search for new places to camp at!

That thought brought my mood back up again, and I turned to look at Max. He was already looking at me, and I started melting when he smiled at me as our eyes met.

"We did it!" I whispered in happiness. "And I didn't even faint or vomit all over the place!"

"You were really great! I knew you could do it," Max spoke and put an arm around my shoulders to give me a tight hug.

"You were great too," I said breathlessly – being hugged by him still gave me that effect.

I really wished that it would never cease doing so.