20
Sometimes you have to tell the truth . . . or maybe not?
I was trembling as I went to see the literature teacher, unsure what was going to happen.
She was sitting at a table, waiting while writing grades on some reports. She had a stack of USB drives in front of her from the students who’d handed in their videos. All I had in my hand was my phone, which had recorded everything last night. There was only one thing I could do: beg.
“Good morning!” I greeted her with all the enthusiasm I could muster, despite shitting myself.
She responded cordially. I sat down across from her and went into explaining that Adrik and me had tried to make the video, but it wasn’t right, so we couldn’t submit the assignment that day and needed an extension.
Just when she was about to say something, Adrik showed up. Him being late today really pissed me off. He knew we hadn’t finished the video. We hadn’t spoken since he walked out of my apartment. He didn’t even look nervous; he was relaxed and aloof, without a care in the world.
I wanted to shout at him, We’re about to fail! Focus, Adrik, focus!
Instead I said, “If you could please let us submit it tomorrow, we’ll hand it in no problem.”
Adrik sat down next to me at the table.
Lauris, lost in thought, shifted her gaze back and forth between the two of us.
I wanted to wring my hands, but I was hoping she’d understand.
She was a laid-back teacher, not strict at all.
And Adrik was the teacher’s pet, right? She couldn’t fail us.
I had hope. I picked up on a positive glow in her face . . .
“Let me see what you’ve done,” she finally sighed, reaching her hand out to me.
And . . . just like that, all hope was lost.
“No!” I shot back and held my phone up to my chest. “Please, Professor Lauris, I swear we’ll do it properly for tomorrow.”
I looked to Adrik for a little support, hoping he’d say something, but he just sat there staring at the teacher with an absent-minded look on his face.
“If you don’t show me that you at least made an effort, then I can’t give you a second chance,” she insisted, like it was that simple. “How can I trust that you didn’t simply forget to do the assignment and that’s why you’re asking me for an extension now?”
“Because you know I’m responsible,” I pleaded.
She pressed her lips together and glanced at Adrik. I seriously hoped he’d say something; otherwise, I was ready to shove the phone down his throat.
“I’ve never not handed in an assignment,” he said drowsily.
Really? That was all he had to say? Why wasn’t he defending us? I wanted to slap him right there, but I held back.
Ms. Lauris reached her hand out to me even farther.
“You either let me see the video or you’ll get an instant fail,” she warned.
The last thing I wanted was to fail, but I also didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of her. The video showed everything. And when I say everything, well, I mean everything.
I was ashamed, but shame wouldn’t get me kicked out of Tagus; a fail would.
With my heart pounding, I hesitantly unlocked my phone, found the video, and hit Play. I handed her the phone, and she started watching it.
It was all going well to start with. Adrik and I were sitting looking at each other, reading, but then .
. . the horror show started. I started acting like a complete idiot while he was trying to make me see sense, I jumped on top of him and then, at the end, we kissed.
To top it all off, we weren’t even kissing like normal people.
We were kissing like two horny devils who were gagging for it!
And worst of all, you could see Adrik’s bulge in his trousers.
Not to mention you could hear everything we said about the fucking incense.
She stopped the video in the middle of the kiss.
She gave us a serious look. I wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out again. Like, it was really weird having to go through this with Adrik there beside me, but the weirdest thing was he didn’t even seem that bothered.
“I’m really sorry,” I said, deflated, hoping she’d feel sorry for me or something. “That wasn’t really me . . . If you could just give us another chance . . .”
Ms. Lauris shifted in her seat and let out a sigh. Her expression was making things even worse. She didn’t look like the laid-back teacher I was used to. She looked kind of pissed off.
“The only thing I can’t overlook is that you got high,” she said reproachfully.
“We had no idea,” I cut her off, trying to do whatever I could to save our asses. “That’s not something I normally do. I was told it was therapeutic. I didn’t know that . . .”
“And does Mr. Cash not have a little more experience with that kind of stuff?” she asked, looking at him.
Adrik shrugged. Fuck, I wanted to grab the biggest book I could find and slap him over the head with it. He still didn’t seem bothered.
“I didn’t realize at first. That’s the truth,” was all he said.
She waited for him to say something else. I was hoping he’d say something else, but he didn’t. Then Ms. Lauris sighed, thinking about what to do with us. I wanted to speak up, I wanted to keep pleading, but I didn’t want to dig a deeper hole.
“I’m going to give you the minimum pass grade,” she said after a minute that seemed to go on forever.
My world crumbled.
“What,” I gasped. “But you said if we showed you the video we could . . .”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you a second chance,” she said. “If the recording simply didn’t turn out well, I might have given you more time; but what I just watched is completely unacceptable.”
It wouldn’t have been like me, Jude Derry, to go down without a fight.
I tried to talk her into it again. I tried all the tricks in the book, but none of them worked.
She said we should be glad she gave us the minimum pass grade when she could’ve failed us outright.
I bolted out of the library, shoving everyone out of my way, pissed off at myself, Ms. Lauris, and the whole fucking world.
“Jude.” Adrik stopped me in the hallway.
“What?” I said. I turned around and looked at him, my eyes blazing with fire.
He frowned and threw me a weird look. All was missing was for him to say, Hey, calm down girl.
“Why are you so pissed? It’s not like she failed us,” he added. It was what he said, the way he said it, and when he was saying it that triggered a surge of anger to course through me and burst out of my mouth.
“She didn’t fail us?” I repeated, pronouncing every syllable and clenching my teeth.
Each word came out bursting with intense rage.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You show up late and then you don’t even try to get her to give us another chance.
I know you don’t give a fuck about anything, but I do.
It wasn’t just you in the video. I come out of this looking bad too. ”
Adrik seemed confused.
“But what you didn’t want was to fail, right?” he asked me, bewildered.
The way he scratched his head in disbelief was infuriating.
“Do you think getting the minimum pass grade is good?” I shot back.
“Well, no, but at least it isn’t a zero.”
I took a step forward and pointed my finger at him. He looked at my finger with surprise, then met my gaze, clearly uneasy. Yeah, I was slightly shorter than him, but right then I felt towering, confident that I could take him if I set my mind to it.
“I’ll tell you something, Adrik Cash,” I said firmly and aggressively.
“In your world, getting the lowest pass grade doesn’t affect you.
You’ve got it all figured out. If you want, you could turn that grade into a better one, and even if you don’t, the world is your oyster.
In my fucking world, just about passing fucks everything up, so I can’t get away with the minimum grade.
Do you want to know why? Because I don’t have a surname that has me set for life. ”
Then, I spun around and got the hell out of there down the hallway.
I stepped out of the building and paused in front of a vending machine filled with energy bars.
I rummaged through my pockets and took out a few coins.
I shoved them into the machine, but it didn’t seem to work.
I tapped it a few times at first, but then I started pounding and kicking it, unleashing my anger over what had happened, which was now being made worse after being robbed by a fucking vending machine.
And then I headbutted it. I shut my eyes and exhaled in frustration.
“And still you ask what the difference is between you and a T-Rex,” said Adrik, from behind me.
“Fuck off,” I muttered, frozen in place, eyes shut, wishing the ground would just swallow me whole.
I heard him let out a tired sigh.
“Look, it’s just an elective class.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “If you want, I’ll go back and speak to her tomorrow to ask her to give us another chance.”
“There’s no point,” I said, frustrated.
He came over to me and pushed my forehead back from the vending machine. I opened my eyes and noticed a playful smirk on his clean-shaven face. He had faint bags under his eyes, yet they did nothing to take away from how hot he was.
“Really? Because I think all I have to do is breathe in her direction, and problem solved,” he said, speaking calmly.
“What? You’re going to pimp yourself out for a grade?” I asked, frowning.
“Don’t you want me to make a big scene?” he said. Then, in a dramatic voice, he started imitating me: “Your future depends on this grade, this, that, and the other . . . I’ve got no other choice but to take drastic measures.”
It was kind of funny, but I was still worried.
“Do you think it’ll work?” I muttered.
He nodded, and honestly, it reassured me. If Adrik Cash was good at anything, it was making me believe that most things weren’t worth getting upset over. Life seemed simpler and less cruel around him.
“Hard not to be certain when she left me a note on an exam saying, ‘I can give you private lessons.’ And we all know her teaching sucks to begin with,” he whispered.