Ridge Area SDA Church

“Alise.” I don’t have to look over to see where the voice is coming from. “Alise.” This time the voice is accompanied by a pencil tapping on my paper. Dropping my own pencil I chance a look in Mr. Grey’s direction before looking to my left.

“What?” I whisper. Looking over at one of Lori’s ‘friends’ Jax… or Jace maybe...

“Do you know what number three is?” I look over my own answer.

“It’s multiple choice just pick one.” I don’t know the answer either so I’m not sure why he thinks I do.

“Please? I need to pass this.” Then he should’ve studied. I look up at her teacher again while he works on his laptop. Probably making the test for the next class.

“Just pick one.” Jax frowns then curses, leaving me alone to struggle over my own test. Economics is the first period of the day and the teacher is not suited for his job. Usually, his voice makes for good background noise while I doodle, which may or may not be the reason that I don’t know the answers to most of this cursed test. There should be at least a few that I know the answers to.

I glance over at Lori sitting in the row in front of me. She doesn’t look stressed or nervous at all, probably because she actually studied.

Nausea curls in my stomach and I drop my head into my hands. There is no way I’m getting more than a C on this; I’d be lucky if I get a D with all the answers that I’ve left blank.

I read through the questions again and scribble some nonsense into the blank spaces—maybe he’ll give me points for effort.

“So we should probably talk about your grades.” I look up at my teacher as I walk past his desk in the front of the classroom after putting my paper in the stack. I couldn’t even make it to the end of my first class without any problems. It’s tempting to act like I never heard anything and keep walking but I pause anyway and my stomach turns. I wouldn't say that I’m terrible at economics but for sure I'm not the best.

“Oh. Ew.” I say, shooting him a smile that is so forced that I’m sure he can see straight through it. I’m mostly just hoping that he finds no reason to email my mother about my declining grade. He keeps a straight face.

“Is it really that bad?” I ask, wrinkling my nose a little bit.

“Well if you would just do your work...” well shoot.

“It’s just that—”

“Why,” he cuts in, holding a hand up to stop my words, “aren’t you doing your work?” he asks.

“I’m not sure.” But I know that lately I’ve been wanting to strike against the high school system more and more. They make students feel so stressed. There’s this girl who is prematurely going gray and she’s in the grade below me.

“I really don’t know,” I continue, trying to come up with a way to see if he’d give me some grace on all my missing assignments. “It’s not that I don’t know how to do the work but that I don’t have time to do the work.” Lies. I'm just lazy, but this class is mandatory so I have to pass. My sixty-four is a passing grade, though after the test that I just turned in that might change soon.

“There is a string of zeros in your grade book so I suggest you find the time.” I nod, my heart sinking. I’m better than this. I must be, but that doesn’t stop the lump burning in my throat. I smile again, my last attempt to hide my prickling eyes.

“I’ll get those done,” I say, readjusting the strap of my backpack over my shoulder.

He dismisses me with a nod, adjusting his glasses and avoiding eye contact before I walk into the hallway.

I catch Lori’s Jedi backpack a couple of doors down from Mr. Grey’s room—the somewhat match to my Baby Yoda backpack that I take my books out of. Seniors wearing backpacks made for kindergarteners is a cute idea, though Grogu was not made to hold my pre-calc book.

“How’d you do?” she asks after I walk into her conversation, waving to the other girl who takes it as her cue to leave.

“Does it matter?” I say, shrugging. I know that things like that test are going to hurt me in the long run but I’m not as ambitious as Lori is. I see no issues with going to a community college, though she wants to go to the same school that her sister is at. And for someone from Charlotte to go to a school like Eastern, she has no room for mistakes. Though I’m not a bad student… usually.

She shrugs right after me, “I’m just glad it’s over. Did you see all the typos? I’m ninety-nine percent sure he typed it up ten minutes before class started.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true.” We stop in front of the door of our next class. And she groans—this is the only subject that we have the same opinion of. “Why did they make Econ and Pre-calc one after the other? And on Monday of all days.”

“They’re trying to break us from the inside out.” I joke, pushing the door open. “Don’t let them see you crack.”