Yes. Talking to Wendy Chase.

Before Wendy gets here, you try to summarize what you know of her. You’ve only been with this class for a month, after all. You’ve managed to learn most of their names, but not their situations.

Wendy is very quiet, though not exactly an introvert or shy. Just very… focused on her own things. You heard something from one of the teachers before. Apparently, her father is a known **** addict who runs one of the slot machine parlors in town. Sadly, not an uncommon story in this side of town. She likes to draw and pays very little attention during class. Her assignments are normally unfinished and full of doodles. She’s pretty talented though. They once had to read an extract of Hamlet and she drew the titular character with a skull on his hand, the famous “To be or not to be?” moment.

You hear the knock on the door and ask Wendy to come in.

The girl has dark brown hair, usually tied into a couple of small braids that reach the lower parts of her generous chest. She’s slim, but with a nice curvy figure. Again, your class has the cutest girls in school, which you’re now sure is a terrible thing.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Sinclair…? Did I do something?” she asks nervously as she slowly sits down in front of you.

“What? No, you didn’t do anything,” you tell her. Why would she think that?

“Oh my god, that’s the problem! We had an assignment due today, didn’t we?” she asks with a look of horror.

“No, Ms. Chase, there’s nothing wrong,” you tell her with a calm smile. “I just wanted to get your opinion on the group you’re on for the play you’ll be writing.”

“O-Oh. I see. I’m so sorry for freaking out…” she gives you a small sheepish smile that makes you chuckle softly.

“It’s fine. So, what do you think about your group. Do you think you could work with them?”

“I… don’t know. I don’t really know them much. I know Veronica is super smart, so that’s reassuring.” Wendy nods. “Vanessa and Erica though… I just know they don’t get along very well and that my dad works with Erica’s dad.”

Oh? You decide to make a mental note of that for future reference.

“Would you be willing to work with the three of them?”

“I guess so. It’s not like I have other people I’d rather work with.”

“Why? You don’t have friends in this class?” You regret asking that question, as it could be a touchy subject for her. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

“Not really. All my friends ended up in other classes this year,” she says with a puffed cheeks.

“I’m sorry about that. Still, I’m glad to know you have no issues with your group. However, and I told this to the other girls as well, if you happen to have any problems with them, be it that they don’t listen to your opinions, make you do all the work or anything like that, please tell me. We’ll talk about it together, okay?”

She giggles, and you can’t help but think she looks even cuter when smiling. “Are you serious? Thanks Mr. Sinclair! When you said the groups would be random I got a little worried.”

“No problem. I’m a firm believer that honest conversations can solve any problem,” you tell her. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about you not paying attention during class.”

“Oh.” She flinches.

After a small lecture you’re sure she’s heard hundreds of times, you let her return to the classroom. Then, you check your watch again.

C. Wendy – Aff. 13 (+13)

It scares you to see that you’re starting to believe the things the app tells you. After all, they make sense. The overall scores of your class are improving, and you can see that in them. They actually give a shit about you as a human being now.