[crow]

"N-No, that's not what I... Well..." He thought back on it, and Mallory did often tell him that she thought he was doing a good job, especially when she had been teaching him some of her work early on. At the point where he joined the club, the tech team had been running on a skeleton crew. She'd handed lights over to him first, saying that was easier than sound. Later, when he felt more or less comfortable running lights, she had trained him on the sound board too.

[crow]

She'd said that it was so that he could fill in for her if she ever got sick or something and couldn't make a show. They cross trained the entire tech crew like that, so they could cover for each other, since there weren't that many of them to begin with. And since they were a high school club, there was necessarily some attrition and turnover every year, as some students graduated and aged out of the school altogether.

[crow]

And while they always got some replacements eventually, it took time to train them up... And it was also harder to find new people for the tech team than it was to find new actors, because running tech wasn't really the kind of thing anyone thought about when they looked up the theater club.

But he had always figured that Mallory had been saying those things to him to be encouraging, and out of politeness. They'd wanted to keep him because they didn't have enough people, that was all.

[crow]

He had never thought of himself as someone who did a good job, just as someone who sufficed for the role he was given.

"I guess I just... never thought she was paying attention to what I was doing," Henry said. It felt kind of stupid now that the words were out of his mouth. Of course she had to pay attention to what he was doing. She was the one who had trained him, and she would have been responsible for how he did.

[crow]

Once he was good enough to be on his own, then she was off the hook, but even so, they were on the same team. They had to pay attention to what the other techies were doing to function as a cohesive unit. Henry himself paid attention to what Mallory did, so of course it made sense that she would be paying attention to him too.

"Yeah, Mallory mentioned something like that too. That you don't give yourself credit for anything. No offense, but she said you were a real wallflower."

[crow]

Annette made a face, and Henry looked away. He didn't know whether he ought to feel insulted or not. The assessment wasn't wrong, but the idea that someone else had said this about him to their friend... Well, if it had been someone that had always insulted him to his face, it probably wouldn't matter. But he liked Mallory, and he had thought she liked him okay too.

Annette shook her head. "No, not like--- She didn't mean it in a bad way."

[crow]

Judging from the look on her face, Annette was regretting having said something, or at least having said it like that. But Henry didn't know what to say to that either. It wasn't the worst thing you could call anyone by a long shot, but he had never heard of an occasion where being called a wallflower was a compliment, and he read a lot of books. "She just thinks you... what, shut yourself down a lot? But people do like you, you know."

[crow]

Henry felt that he ought to say something, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He was awkward at the best of times, and they didn't know each other, really. The silence dragged on, and eventually Annette shrugged one shoulder. "I guess it's not any of my business. I'm not the one who knows you. But if you wanted to hang out outside of club, you could come with us sometime. You like comics?"

This whole encounter was taking one unexpected turn after another.

[crow]

When he had first seen a dog charging at him, Henry wouldn't have suspected that just a short while later, a pretty girl would be asking him to hang out with her. Not that he was getting the wrong idea, of course. Annette hadn't done a single thing that made him think that she was flirting with him or anything. She was only paying him any attention at all because her friend knew him, and had apparently talked about him on occasion.

[crow]

But people rarely ever asked him to hang out on even a friends basis.

He didn't know what to say. But she was waiting expectantly now, having asked him a question. And it wasn't as if the question she had posed to him was a difficult thing in and of itself. "I... I guess I like comics," he said.

Annette laughed again. "Boy, you sound real sure of that," she said. "It's cool if you don't, we were just thinking of going down to the comic shop in town next weekend. You could come if you wanted, but don't push yourself."
[Crystal Synthesis Complete]