9th Grade, High School
Age: 14-15
June 2007
…
Gretchen sets her backpack down against the chain link fence surrounding the practice field. She is a little early judging from the time on the school clocktower. With the school year winding down, her academic clubs have all completed their competitions until September. Today was the final meeting of Mathletes with a pizza party and everyone discussing their summer plans. Most were heading to various camps – either as campers or counselors depending on age – or spending their vacation close to home.
This summer she will be forgoing camp in the traditional sense. One of her teachers had submitted her name to the National Youth Leaders in Science and she had been invited to the Boston chapter's month-long medicine specialty conference. Based on the brochure that had come in the mail, she was a little surprised – and disappointed if she had to admit – that she did not get invited to the Southern California chapter's biotech conference, which appealed more to her resume.
Her parents had encouraged her to pursue the opportunity anyway. Medical doctor had never been on her radar, but her parents were right in that it would be a great networking opportunity and it would look good on her college applications. What solidified the trip for her was the small blurb in the brochure mentioning guest speakers from the various pharmaceutical companies and partnering universities, one of which was the director for the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program. Although she should have guessed, she hadn't realized she could be both a medical doctor and a research scientist.
So for the entire month of July, she will be in Boston, exploring Harvard Medical School and the countless other institutions in the area. She may even get to see a surgery.
The clocktower chimes with the new hour and she looks out at the field. The freshman girls' lacrosse team is now huddled together, their sticks in the air, shouting some sort of cheer. Gretchen picks up her backpack and adjusts it on her shoulders. The group on the field breaks up and Spinelli rushes away from the rest, grabbing her bag quickly from the sideline and running toward Gretchen.
"You are my favorite person ever," Spinelli says as she passes her lacrosse stick, practice bag, and her backpack over the fence.
Gretchen shakes her head. "You don't need to tell me that every time."
Spinelli smirks and adjusts her ballet bag on her shoulders. "I'll be there by the fourth inning!"
Then she turns and starts sprinting across the field toward the bike rack. Gretchen sighs and shakes her head, adjusting all the bags in a comfortable position, before she starts toward the baseball field. On the days when the boys have a home game, Gretchen offered to hold Spinelli's things at the field so she didn't have to lug it all across town to the ballet studio and back. After Spinelli took a pretty nasty wipe out on her bike trying to carry it all, she took up the offer.
Gretchen understands that Spinelli is involved in many afterschool activities and that her schedule is exceptionally tight, but she doesn't understand how it accumulates so much baggage. Regardless, the bags aren't necessarily heavy, just awkward.
The bleachers are still mostly empty when she arrives. Given the time the freshman boys typically play their games, the stands are never full until the end, when parents begin to get out of work and come to watch the final inning or so. She goes to her usual spot about halfway up, stuffing Spinelli's bags and stick toward the end of the row.
Vince is pitching today. He stands on the mound while Phil crouches at the plate. He winds up and throws a fastball right down the middle. She turns away to reach into her bag, taking out the scorebook Vince gave her at the start of the season. Vince asked if she would keep track of his stats during the games and she leapt at the opportunity. It makes the game more enjoyable for her to watch. She told him that she could do it on her electronics rather than the paper scorebook, but he insisted on the old-fashioned stats. She does transcribe them into her computer after the game, enjoying being able to analyze them in her statistics software.
Vince throws one last pitch and walks off the mound. Phil catches the pitch and throws it down to second base, where TJ catches the ball easily, swiping it across the dirt as if tagging a runner from first base out. Then he casually tosses the ball to Sam, who stands behind second base as backup to the throw. Sam tosses it to Dave at first, who throws it to the third baseman.
It's such a fancy little sequence that they do at the start of every inning. It makes her chuckle.
While the boys all do their throwing sequence, Vince waves at her from right by the mound. She waves back and sends him a good luck double thumbs up.
The group of ball players converge on the mound, discussing whatever it is they discuss before the inning begins. TJ takes his spot beside Vince in the circle, their backs to the spectators, all that's visible being their numbers – one and three.
The bleachers shift under the weight of someone walking up and she looks away from the field to see Mikey and Gus. They take their seats beside her, setting their bike helmets on the bleacher row in front of them.
"Oh, good, it hasn't started yet," Gus says in the seat immediately beside her. "We were worried. No one was letting us cross at Grand Street."
"It's a beautiful day for a baseball game," Mikey waxes, looking up at the sky. "Blue sky, not a single cloud, and good friends. What more could we ask for?"
She turns back down to the field where the players have broken apart and are walking back to their positions. Vince and TJ appear to still be talking, TJ walking backwards toward second base, hands up in the air. She eyes Vince, who appears to be laughing, and she lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
Things have mostly returned to what she thinks is their new normal. Vince was actually the one to initially tell her about TJ and Spinelli. The night after Vince and TJ's fight, she had gotten a text from him while she was working on some homework after dinner.
They got their act together :/
"It's not that I don't want them to be happy," Vince had told her when she immediately called him back. "It's not that at all. It's just…I feel like I'm losing my best friend."
She doesn't know how long she sat on the phone with Vince that night, but it was long enough that when Spinelli found her in the hall between classes the next day, pulling her into a corner, she commented on it.
"Your phone was busy all night! What were you doing?"
"Just a…conversation with a friend," she had said.
Spinelli had rolled her eyes. "This is so much more important than science nonsense, Gretch! I have big news."
They were each told individually, which she thinks was important. Spinelli told Mikey, who walked around with a giant grin most of the day, and TJ told Gus, who looked confused for a week. Gretchen partially felt to blame for that. She, Vince, and Mikey had all spoken in the past and knew this was inevitable, but they had done nothing to warn Gus. They weren't trying to keep him in the dark, but they also didn't want to point anything out that might scare him either. She had thought Vince's reaction at lunch might have clued him in somewhat, but apparently, he took the whole situation at face value – Vince was jealous that he wasn't vice president.
Regardless, they all kept their promise and didn't tell a soul until after the election, Spinelli terrified that the knowledge would get their classmates to vote for a competitor. In the end, Gretchen is sure it wouldn't have mattered. TJ and Spinelli won by a landslide.
TJ, to his credit, has put in a lot of effort with Vince. He always makes sure to sit with Vince on one side, makes sure Vince is the first to know of any plan or new development going on, and as his first action as class president, he had insisted that Vince be treasurer of the class. She knows that meant a lot to Vince and though it didn't immediately heal things, it helped.
Sometimes she still finds herself getting nervous, knowing that there is still some tension under the surface that she thinks may always be there. It's like she views Vince and TJ as two tectonic plates, sliding and colliding against each other, and she is the seismologist, waiting for an earthquake that may or may not come.
The first three innings go by quickly. Vince starts with a no-hitter and has a good offensive game as well. He hits an in-the-park homerun that scores TJ as well in the second inning, extending their small lead by two.
He has just struck out the third batter in the top of the fourth when Spinelli shows up. She stops at the home team dugout first, throwing what appears to be a pack of gum over the chain link fence to TJ, which gets quickly stolen by Sam – or Dave, Gretchen can never tell from a distance. As Spinelli starts to walk toward the bleachers, she turns around and blows TJ a kiss. The team explodes in a teasing guffaw and Gretchen's eyes immediately turn to Vince, the only member of the team watching the pitching change.
TJ points toward the field and she thinks she can hear over the teasing, "Hey! Focus on the field! Pitching change!"
Vince turns just slightly then, watching as TJ completely ignores the teasing to stand beside him. The rest of the group, unsatisfied with TJ's lack of response, falls into line.
The rest of the game goes much the same way as the first four innings. The coach takes Vince out and adjusts the field once they're too far ahead for the outcome to change. The starters all take a spot on the bench, allowing some of the other team members a chance to play. Dave – she can tell from the number on the back of his shirt – pulls out his iPod and a portable speaker and during the warmups between innings, the boys dance on the dugout bench.
"They have way too much fun," Spinelli says. "They need some competition to take them down a notch."
"I don't know if that'll happen," Gus says. "Vince is one of the best pitchers in the state."
Vince chose to stay on the freshman team this year when the junior varsity coach gave him the choice. He had made the case that bonding with his current teammates would be more beneficial than going up to the top level. In addition, Vince would only be pitching if he went up, given that there were other boys who have the other positions he plays, and playing on the freshman team with the rest of his friends would also allow him to continue to hone his other field positions.
She knows most of it just stemmed from not wanting to feel left out. He was bumped up to JV for basketball in the winter and, though he was thrilled to be the only freshman player in recent history to be called up from the freshman squad, he definitely missed out, stuck between sophomores and juniors on his JV team and the other freshmen he left behind.
While the two teams are shaking hands after the game finishes, the four pack up their things and walk down the bleachers to meet the other two.
"Great game, guys!" Gus says.
"Yes, what a splendid display of skill," Mikey adds. "Shall we enjoy celebratory milkshakes at Kelso's to begin our weekend?"
They all agree, though it's less of a question than it seems. When the opportunity arises when all six of them are together on a Friday after school, like they are right now, they go to Kelso's. They walk up to the bike rack where everyone but Vince and Gretchen have stored their bikes. Gretchen gets a ride to school in the morning and on game days Vince goes to Third Street early to get his free throws in and walks from there.
TJ is the first of the others to notice the two missing bikes.
"You two want a ride?" he asks, gesturing to his handlebars.
Though they've traveled two by bike in the past, it was when they were much smaller and didn't have their backpacks. She looks at the four – TJ has half of Spinelli's equipment in addition to his own baseball bag and while Mikey and Gus have dropped their things at home, it looks precarious at best to share their bikes.
She and Vince share a look and he waves them off. "Nah, we'll meet you there."
"You sure you don't want to ride on our handlebars?" Spinelli asks.
Gretchen shakes her head while Vince laughs.
"Not the way you ride a bike," he says, gesturing to her legs. "How are those knees healing up?"
Spinelli glares, but her legs are still scraped up. Her entire left calf is still red with road rash from her recent tumble.
"We can walk our bikes," TJ says.
"Just go ahead and grab our spot before someone steals it," Vince says, waving TJ off. "It won't take that much longer to walk to Kelso's. We'll be right behind you."
The group agrees, racing off like they always used to as kids to beat the Ashleys to their coveted booth. Vince adjusts his baseball bag over his shoulder and the two begin walking in the same direction. They shouldn't be too far behind.
"You must be getting excited," Vince says as they cross the street in front of the school. "You leave for Boston in how many days?"
"Tomorrow will be fifteen days."
"Fifteen days," he repeats. "When you get back, you'll basically be Dr. Grundler."
She shakes her head and chuckles at his exaggeration.
"I don't actually go to medical school while I'm there. It's just a conference with some educational seminars and a lot of shadowing and guest speakers," she insists. She looks down at the sidewalk, eyeing the cracks in the cement. "Besides, I'm not sure I want to be a doctor anyway."
She half expects Vince to balk at her. The members of her Mathletes club had all rolled their eyes and called her humble with the slightest sneer indicating that it wasn't a compliment. She isn't trying to play down her grades or desires. In all honesty, there are so many options for her to pursue that she doesn't want to pigeonhole herself into just one.
When Vince doesn't reply, she looks up from the sidewalk cracks to see him staring at her. She gives a little shrug and when he responds, he doesn't mock her at all. In fact, he sounds interested to hear what she has to say.
"What do you want to be?"
She shrugs.
"I'm not sure. A lot of different areas interest me and I'm trying to find a good fit. It's why I'm going because while I don't think I want to be a medical doctor, maybe I'm just not seeing it in the right light. Or maybe I can be both a physician and a bench researcher."
Vince smirks. "I could see that."
"Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah!" He uses his hands as he talks, as if he's describing a new action movie instead of her future. "By day, you're cutting open people's skulls and saving their brains as some hot shot neurosurgeon and by afternoon you're creating cures for strokes or Alzheimer's or something like that."
She doesn't know how Vince knows about her current interest in neuroscience. Her interests change so often, with different scientific theories or areas sparking her curiosity, that she never truly brings it up with her friends. He must have seen what she has been reading in her spare time and picked up on it.
"I suppose that would be interesting."
"It'd be impressive and we all know you're going to do something impressive. If it's not that, it'll be something else equally as cool," he says. "Just don't forget about us little guys stuck in Arkansas while you're away this summer."
She shakes her head at his grandiose verbiage. Yes, her summer will be educational and she hopes it will pique her interest in one way or another, but she highly doubts it will be the extreme departure from the rest of their summers. Everyone is doing their own unique summer activities, not just her.
"I'm sure you will have a fine summer. You're going to be so busy with summer baseball and football camp that you won't even miss me."
"I'm not so sure about that," he mutters. "You'll be gone. Mikey's off with his choral troupe and Gus is at military camp. That leaves me and the lovebirds." He kicks a rock. "It'll be just like old times except instead of the third musketeer, I'll be the third wheel."
Vince and TJ's summer plans match up well, as they both play on the same summer baseball team and will go to football camp with the rest of their typical group of teammates before preseason starts. She assumes some of their other friends from outside of their group will join in for trips to Kelso's after practice or days at Muddy Bottom Pond when they're all sweaty and exhausted from games. Phil, Sam, and Dave all live in the neighborhood as well, making it easy for them to join in.
But she does understand the change that this summer will bring for Vince and without one of the other members of their group to act as a buffer, it will seem that much more obvious when TJ and Spinelli head off on their own. TJ, Spinelli, and Vince always hung out together while they were all at Third Street. Over the summers and on weekends, the three would already be together playing outside in TJ's yard when she came over after her experiment had finished in her bedroom lab, or she would see them biking around town while she was with her parents and they would drop her off to join.
"I will have my phone with me," she says. "You can call me whenever you need to. Boston is only an hour ahead."
He doesn't reply and she doesn't push him. For a while, they walk in silence as they turn the corner toward the square where Kelso's is located. They pass a few storefronts before he speaks again.
"I know I'm being dramatic," he tells her quietly. "I know it won't be that bad. I'm just dreading being alone. I'm too much of an extrovert for my own good I guess."
"You can call me anytime," she insists. "If I can't pick up, I'll call back as soon as I can."
"Thanks, Gretch. Really, I appreciate it."
"It's what friends do."
He smiles softly before reaching for the door, opening it so Gretchen can enter Kelso's first.
…
Spinelli looks out the window and sighs. It is a beautiful day outside and so close to the end of the school year. The seniors are already gone, having graduated the week before, and everyone else is counting down the days until summer vacation. Her lacrosse season is finished. TJ and Vince have one last away baseball game before they transition to summer league. Gretchen is already planning her own summer reading list in addition to the one they'll get today.
She looks up as the homeroom teacher stops in front of her desk. They call it homeroom, but it's barely worth the name. Each Wednesday they have a fifteen minute break between second and third period that they call homeroom but is nothing more than a time for all the week's announcements to be handed to them all at once. She so happens to share this weekly fifteen minutes of boredom with five Washington Middle kids she didn't bother to learn the names of, Hustler Kid, Ashley B, and Menlo.
What a crew.
The homeroom teacher drops the red sheet of paper down on her desk and then adjusts the papers, setting a blue sheet down with it. The red sheet displays her schedule for sophomore year while the blue has her summer reading assignment, the two sheets color-coded with the school colors to make it more fun. She rolls her eyes and takes a quick scan, just to make sure they didn't screw up her electives. Her hope is to see that she managed to score the first period art class she wanted – which is typically a senior-filled class but the teacher offered her a spot.
She didn't get it, her art class down at third period instead with the other instructor, but that can't work. The math class she is supposed to be in is third period. The math classes are so segmented by skill, the students tracked together through the four years of school, that there is no other class for her to be in. She frowns and looks over her schedule, her eyes widening at what she finds.
Her math is scheduled for first period. Accelerated Math Program - AB; Wolfman, Room 003.
Her eyes jump to the name at the top. She must have gotten the wrong schedule by accident. Sometimes the teacher doesn't look hard enough and she ends up with Ashley B's paperwork. But that wouldn't make any sense. Ashley B isn't in that math class either.
No, right at the top reads all of her information.
Spinelli, Ashley F
10/13/1992
SY 2007-2008
Gr: 10
She groans. Someone in the guidance office did a major screw up inputting her class schedule into the computer.
She raises her hand, telling the teacher her issue when she walks over. The teacher looks up at the clock and lets her go down to guidance to have it changed. Spinelli grumbles as she packs up her things. There is probably going to be a line a mile long of frustrated teenagers when she gets there and she is already not in a good mood.
As she walks, she stuffs her hands in the pocket of TJ's sweatshirt and scuffs her boot on the hallway tile. If this screw up ruined her schedule, she is going to scream. She and TJ worked really hard on his papers this semester to get him a great grade in English class with the hope that he could jump up to the honors class with her. She spent a lot of time with a red pen, cutting things out, adding things in, and teaching TJ the strategy of the five paragraph essay. If all of that hard work is moot because of a clerical error…
There is no line for the guidance counselor she is assigned to when she arrives, so she is allowed to go straight to her door and knock. The woman turns from her computer and smiles.
"What can I do for you?"
"Um, I was put in the wrong math class."
The woman holds out her hand and Spinelli hands her the red sheet of paper. The woman scans it.
"Oh, I remember this," she says quietly. Spinelli raises an eyebrow, but the woman just turns back to her computer, logging into a program and typing on a few screens. "Let me just check to make sure I'm not confusing you with another student."
The woman pulls up a few screens and then finally turns back around.
"Everything is correct on my end, Ashley."
Spinelli shakes her head.
"But, I'm not in the Accelerated Math Program," she says. She almost laughs. It's ridiculous that she even has to argue this. "I took regular honors geometry this year."
The woman nods. "And you were recommended by Mrs. McHale to be moved into the higher math class based on your grades."
"Look, you don't understand," Spinelli says. "Math and science are not my thing."
"You've received As in both," the counselor says, her eyes glancing at her computer screen.
That is because she worked her butt off. She wasn't about to look dumb in front of Ashley A. The amount of time she spent on her math homework or going to Mrs. McHale for help was ridiculous. She is no math whiz like Gretchen. She's not even halfway decent at it like Vince and Gus. She just was too stubborn, especially when Ashley A would flip her stupid blonde hair over her shoulder and try to eye the grade at the top of Spinelli's test when they were passed back.
She told her friends that she was "failing" too many times to count, not wanting them to know how hard she was trying to do well. So at lunch, when she needed to get help, she lied, trying to play it off like she had always done at Third Street. It had worked for the most part. Apparently, it had worked too well because her stupid teacher now thinks she has the stamina for a harder class.
"I'm not math smart," she insists.
She'll take credit for her English grades. She likes English. She likes reading. She likes writing. Math…math is for Gretchen, Vince, and Gus.
The guidance counselor shrugs.
"Mrs. McHale thinks otherwise," she says in the tone adults use when they think they know what's best for someone they're mentoring. Spinelli grinds her teeth as the woman continues. "She wrote a wonderful recommendation on your behalf when there was an opening in the program. You don't have to take it, of course, but this will put you on track to take the AP exam senior ye-"
"Whoa, what?" Spinelli interrupts. "I'm not smart enough to take that AP exam!"
The woman crosses her arms. "And why not? You're in other AP-track classes. You aren't giving yourself enough credit."
Spinelli crosses her arms to mimic the guidance counselor's behavior. "Look, I'm not good at math. I don't know what Mrs. McHale was thinking, but I'm not your girl."
The woman shakes her head.
"If that's how you feel," she says, holding out her red sheet.
Spinelli reaches for it. "Aren't you going to change it?"
"School policy is that when you go down a level, you need parent permission." The woman stands and walks to a filing cabinet, removing a white form, which she hands to Spinelli. "So, if you decide that you want to go back down to the honors class you were in, have one of your parents sign this and bring it back to me."
The woman looks at her computer and gives a haughty shrug.
"We'll have to reconfigure your schedule a little because none of the first period electives are open."
Of course.
Regardless, she grabs the white sheet and turns on her heel. She didn't hear the bell ring, but she knows it already did. She stomps through the halls toward her class. What sort of nerve do these school officials think they have automatically pushing her up a math class without telling her? And then not letting her drop back down with a parent signature? Like her parents are going to do anything but cry tears of joy when they see that class on her schedule.
When she gets to her classroom, she throws her head back and lets out an audible groan, trying to get some composure before she walks in late. Dumb guidance counselor didn't even give her a note.
She opens the door to the Spanish class, barely acknowledging the teacher as she goes to sit in the back. It's so close to the end of school that the teacher doesn't even argue with her. Spinelli doesn't pay attention to anything going on around her – instead, just staring at her new and improved schedule. She'll find out for sure at lunch, but she knows the only English class TJ could take was second period and luckily she also has that. If that hadn't been the case, she would have forged her parents' signatures. Her mother's is easy enough – flowy and flowery, with half her name a scribble.
The rest of the gang is already at their lunch table when she arrives, comparing schedules and looking jolly. She crumples her papers in her hand. They probably all got what they wanted. She got what she didn't ask for – a lot more work for a class she doesn't even like.
She takes the empty seat between TJ and Mikey, her eyes immediately going to his schedule.
"Oh, thank God," she mutters. Their second period slot matches – Honors English 10; Johnson, Room 113.
He turns from the rest and frowns. "You don't look happy."
She holds out her paper. "Just look at what they did to me."
He takes it, trying to iron it out against the table top. She watches his finger slide down the schedule, stopping briefly on the second period slot. He grins, bumping her knee under the table with his own. He looks up from the schedule and meets her eyes, his twinkling with excitement. Despite her heart still racing with rage, her mouth curls upwards involuntarily. Why are his eyes so mesmerizing? It doesn't matter how often she stares into them – which she has a fair amount since they became official in January – she always gets lost in them. They aren't an immensely bright blue, the type everyone seems to use in novels. She has read so many books where the male love interest has unnatural cornflower blue irises. Instead, TJ's are just really light, almost grayish, like gunmetal, framed by long dark eyelashes–
"What did they do?" Gus asks.
She turns away, her anger taking over. TJ throws an arm over her shoulder and smiles at their friends.
"Oh, she's just bummed that they stuck her with me for English," he jokes.
He leans over and kisses her cheek. It almost distracts her.
Almost.
"That's not it," she snarls, grabbing the paper back from TJ's hands and slamming it on the center of the table so everyone can see. "Look! They stuck me in the high math class!"
Gretchen reaches across the table, taking Spinelli's crumpled red sheet in her hands to examine it.
"This must be a clerical error," she states, looking over the paper at Spinelli. "If you go to the guidance office, they can change it to the correct class."
"You think I didn't do that?" Spinelli exclaims. "Of course I did. Turns out they put me in there on purpose!"
If she wasn't so mad, she might have laughed at the expressions that flood her friends features. Gretchen's eyes widen. She can almost feel the wind from TJ whipping his head back to look at her. Mikey is the only one not seemingly startled and instead smiles at her kindly.
"Wow, Spinelli. You must have done really well in your math class this year," he says.
Vince frowns and crosses his arms. "Weren't you failing?" He leans back in his chair and shakes his head. "Or is this another case of the 'Oh, let me pretend I'm dumb' BS you pull all the time?"
Spinelli glares at him. "Shut up, Vince!"
She slams her fists into the table.
"This isn't fair!" she squeals. "Just because a girl puts in a little effort doesn't mean she wants to be in the hardest math section!"
Gus now has her schedule and he looks up from it, shaking his head.
"Aww, it's not that bad," he says. "I'll be in your class! And it's not like we're in the hardest one. We're in the AB-track. Vince and Gretchen will end up taking the BC exam – that's the hard one."
"Easy for you to say," she grumbles.
The honors class was hard for her. It's why she spent so much effort on it. She can't even imagine how much of a stretch it will be for her now that she's in this class. She is not an AP math person and anyone who thinks she is one is delusional. It's probably a numbers thing – gotta keep their quota or something up and she was the unfortunate one that was next on the list.
She bites her tongue to keep from screaming.
Gus shrugs and passes her schedule to Mikey.
"No, seriously. Ashley T is in our class too and if an Ashley can do this math, so can you," he says, finishing off with a wink.
She bites her tongue harder. Trying to out-math an Ashley is what got her in this situation in the first place. She should have just conceded. Then she could still be competing with Ashley A in the math class she would much rather be in.
When she doesn't reply, Gus continues. "I'll help out, whatever you need! I like math and it'll be nice to have a friend there with me."
"You can always change classes," Mikey adds. "No one will think less of you if you do."
Gretchen starts talking before he even finishes.
"But you should really try it before you change it," she says quickly, as if she's trying to get her entire argument out before Spinelli cuts her off. "For them to move you up, you'd need a recommendation, so they must think you are capable of doing it. You may even find the faster pace more stimulating. Plus, it will look good on your college applications."
"I doubt colleges will like it if I actually fail a math class," she mumbles.
Vince rolls his eyes.
"Come on, Spin. Stop trying to look cool by acting dumb," he says. "That got old in fourth grade."
She stands and grabs her bag. "I'm going for a walk," she grunts.
She storms away from the table and back through the double doors of the cafeteria. Once she's outside the doors, she leans against the wall and sighs. Vince is right. He nailed her actions right on the head in any other situation, but she actually thinks she may fail this math class. This isn't pretend this time.
She presses the heels of her hands to her temples as her breathing quickens. She feels too much and she wants it to go away. She needs it to go away. If it doesn't, she might end up punching something. Or crying. Or dying. She's actually having a hard time breathing.
The doors fly open and TJ runs out, slowing down when he sees her. He walks in front of her, reaching for her hands with his. He gives them a quick squeeze.
"Breathe, Spin."
She takes a few deep breaths and watches as TJ takes them with her. She watches his chest rise and fall in a slow rhythmic pattern. Naturally, she follows suit and before long, she feels much more relaxed.
"I don't want to fail."
It's the first time that she has actually admitted out loud that she cares about her grades. She doesn't want people to think she's stupid. She does want to go to college one day, maybe even get to go out of state and see something besides her little hometown.
"You won't fail," he says. "Even I haven't failed yet, and you are much better at school than I am."
She shakes her head. "No, I'm just stubborn."
The lopsided smirk that adorns his face makes her gut clench. "Same thing."
He lets go of one of her hands and it suddenly feels empty. But he reaches up to cup her cheek, gently stroking her skin with his thumb.
"What do you think I should do?" she asks.
"I will support whatever decision you make." He smiles. "My only request is that you try your hardest not to be switched out of our English class because I'm just a teeny bit excited to sit next to you."
"Only a teeny bit?" she teases.
"I'm trying not to get my hopes up," he says back. "If you change your schedule, it might change that too."
She grinds her teeth, realizing the catch-22 of her decision either way. She either changes her schedule and is more comfortable with her classes, but most likely loses her opportunity to have class with TJ, or she keeps her schedule as is and risks actually failing her math class, but at least she has class with TJ.
"I guess Gretchen's right," she mumbles. "I guess I should try it before I balk at it."
"And Gus is in your class, so if you need anything, he'll be right there to help," TJ adds.
She nods, but her gut still bubbles unpleasantly.
…
Notes
AP Calculus exams are separated into AB and BC – AB covers topics equivalent to first semester college calculus; BC covers topics equivalent to first and second semester college calculus. BC classes, therefore, naturally have to cover topics at a more vigorous speed than AB, which is why Gus insinuates that "BC is harder" – I based the way the students are tracked off my own high school math experience.
I decided to do a bit of a time jump and added in sprinkles of what occurred in the previous few months in Gretchen's section. If there is anything that hasn't been written in the fic that you are dying to see, let me know and I may be able to write some outtakes, but I wanted to move ahead a bit to start developing some of the other characters – hence why we got Gretchen telling a majority of the chapter and Spinelli getting a narration that is more than her boy troubles.
The boys (Vince and TJ) will be up next in Summer 2007.