Final

Sam struggled to keep her eyes open as she focused them on her textbook, trying to memorize the many formulas and concepts on the pages. It was the night before her math final, and seeing as she had spent a vast majority of the year sleeping in that class, she didn't exactly have the best idea of the material.

She had been stressed out the whole week of school, taking finals for the rest of her classes. English was the easiest for her. While it was true that she hadn't cracked open any of the assigned books the whole year (who wanted to read about some lady with an A sewn to her clothes anyway?) she was able to compensate with the essay portion of the test, using her talents in writing to bring her grade up to a solid B. Gym was easy enough; run around the gym a couple of times while sneakily tripping Gibby, and she did fairly well on her History final from watching a bunch of war documentaries (which were gory and violent, just the way Sam liked it). Physics was a bit of a struggle, but ever since her Green Week project in ninth grade, Mr. Henning had always put in a good word with all her science teachers, so even though she defined gravity as the square root of pi and Force as the product of temperature and height, she scraped by with a passing D on the test.

Math was the problem, though. It was always her worst subject, even as a little kid. And unfortunately, Sam desperately needed to pass this final or she would be breaking her promise to Freddie.

Two weeks ago, when the rest of the seniors were stocking up on coffee and number two pencils in preparation for their upcoming exams, Sam had announced that she was simply going to wing all of her finals and see how it turned out. Carly of course had been furious, but as she had exams of her own, she only had limited time to scold her best friend. Her boyfriend, Freddie, on the other hand, had put aside his own study time to attempt to reason with her.

"Just because you've already been accepted into Seattle Dance Academy doesn't mean you can just slack off at the end," he told her.

"Why not?" Sam shrugged. "It's not like I need to know cosines and sines and all that junk to dance."

"I know," he had sighed. "But you've worked hard all year. You haven't failed any classes so far and you've even done a few homework assignments. How awful do you think you'd feel if you just gave up at the last minute?"

Sam didn't say anything.

"Just promise me, Sam," Freddie said. "You'll at least try. I know you can pass every exam you take if you do that. Please, for me?"

"That's Carly's line."

"Sam…"

"Fine," she sighed. "I promise, I won't fail any of my finals, you nub."

Freddie had of course helped her a lot. Everyday this week he had dedicated two hours of his time to go through problems with her and made her flashcards to help her memorize the formulas she needed. But now it was two in the morning and he had long since gone back home.

"Sin A/ a is equal to…" Sam muttered, taking a swig of coffee. "Oh yeah, Sin B/b. But wait…is that for a triangle or a trapezoid…?"

….

"That was the hardest final I've ever taken," Carly said as she walked out of class with Sam.

"Yeah," Sam yawned. "Mr. Fishturn's a real jerk. Who sits there and puts 100 questions on one test?"

"Let's just find Freddie and go back to my place," Carly said. "It's summer, after all. We're officially done with high school!"

"So, what do you three little graduates want on your pizza?" Spencer asked the trio as they watched a new episode of Girly Cow.

"Meat," Sam answered. "Lots and lots of meat."

"Oh no," Carly said, looking at her phone. "Wendy just texted me. Mr. Fishturn just posted our exam grades online."

Sam felt her stomach tighten. Freddie, who had his arm around her, gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure you did fine," he whispered as Carly jumped up and ran to the computer.

"I got a C," Carly announced.

"That's pretty good," Freddie told her. "I herd Fishturn gets his problems from college textbooks."

"I guess," Carly said. "I still have a B for my overall grade, though, so that's good. Do you want to check, Sam?"

"Um, sure," Sam said, trying not to sound too anxious. She typed in her information on the computer and pulled up her grades."

"No way!" she exclaimed happily, hardly believing what she saw. "I got a B+ on the final!"

"Wow, Sam, that's awesome!" Carly smiled, hugging her best friend. "I know how hard you studied for that. You deserve it."

"Definitely," Freddie said, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his lips to hers.

"You're the one who helped me a lot," Sam told him.

"You're the one who actually took the test," Freddie replied. "See, Sam, when you apply yourself, you're a genius!"

"Applying myself is so much effort though," Sam whined playfully.

"I think we need to celebrate," Carly said. "Spencer! Cancel that pizza order! We're going to Pini's!"

"Yay! I can see Marty!"

"Hey," Sam said as Carly ran upstairs to get her purse and Spencer hurried to get some clean socks.

"Yeah?" Freddie said.
"Thanks for pushing me to study," she said. "You're right. I feel pretty good right now; a whole heck of a lot better than I would be feeling if I had failed everything."

"Just think," Freddie grinned. "Now you'll be the only dancer in Seattle who can take limits and use the Law of Sines and all that other math stuff."