FIXATED

CHAPTER 2

As per usual I woke up in a rush considering although my alarm clock worked, my spidey senses of where the snooze button always overcame the noise. Snagging an apple from the kitchen while Aunt May chased me out the door to give me my wallet, I ran to the subway station and made my daily commute to NYU. Sure, on some days I had swung to school but I wanted to save my webs for the real emergencies. Not to mention that it got complicated how I would hide my suit when I opened my bag in class. Nevertheless, I arrived on time for my favorite class of the day (not), Writing I

In Fact every morning that I had this class, I prayed that the train would crash on my morning commute there. With minimal effort from my end I continually get amazing grades in my science and math based classes. However, English courses in particular were the only courses I've encountered thus far in my college that I have been having a hard time. Naturally I'm just better suited for more math related and science related material. The "arts" such as English on the other hand... . What makes the situation even worse is that English courses are gen ed and are basically required for most of my college career.

Sitting in that class was just dreadful. It was a complete snoozefest with Prof.Flanigan's rambing. I knew I should have looked at rate my professor before taking this class, at the very least I could have had someone more captivating talk about the Medieval literature.

What was especially raising my anxiety was that we were receiving our grades back for a recent paper, and Prof.Flanigan is ruthless. And I am not God's strongest soldier... writing wise at least. So long story short... she was especially rough on me. In all my life I've never had a failing grade until this semester with her. I just wasn't built for writing.

Thinking about the grade kept me awake the entire class when normally i'd be sleeping. However, there was one aspect of the class that did keep me somewhat interested from time to time. That was looking at Y/N L/N.

She was gorgeous, that's a given. We'd talked a few times in class and she was always sweet. In a way she reminds me of someone that I used to know... but it's also a very painful sight. So just as quick as I glimpse at her, I look away. Nevertheless, today she looked especially good and my eyes were lingering especially long. Her hair fell just right looking down at her notebook, her hand so delicate holding her pen, and her outfit so girly and soft. From her posture down to the way she crossed her legs, there was something about her. I must have been looking at her for too long as when my eyes reverted back to hers from across the room, I realized she was looking back at me.

Oh god she saw me this is embarrassing

My eyes quickly scattered to any other thing in the room, swearing I would never look her way again.

Nevertheless, after a moment I caught myself glancing back to her to see if she was still looking at me. She wasn't... but she did have a slight smirk on her lips that kept me wondering what for.

I snapped out of staring so curiously at her light smirk when everyone stood up with Flanigan concluding that class was over and to head to the front for our papers.

It was then that the anxiety began to set in. I made sure I was the last person on the way out to avoid anyone catching my reaction to my grade.

Coincidentally, in heading to the front I got to stand behind Y/N who was talking to a friend. She even smelled pretty... don't think that that's weird.

She seemed to look over her shoulder at me which caused me to look away nervously.

Clearing my throat I tried to distract myself from our close proximity. Eventually in heading to the front, I saw her get her paper back from Flannigan. She smiled at Y/N. Obviously she must have got a good grade.

I peered over her shoulder slightly to see she got an A-

Wow must be nice.

It was to be expected. I just was dying to know what I got if Y/N got an A-

Y/N walked out of the classroom with her friend waiting for her outside.

In Flanigan seeing me her smile faded away. Oh god.

"Peter" she stated while in pulling my paper from her folder of hell. I could already see it drawing in red ink.

She handed it to me with her claws for nails, but there was only one thing I could see clearly which was a bright red F.

Aunt May is gonna kill me

My mouth dropped at the same time as my heart. I looked up to her without a word.

"I'm sorry Peter, but I can offer you the chance to resubmit" she hesitated.

RESUBMIT? This took me an all nighter to write, even Aunt May's writing was thrown in there. If i spent a whole night on it what would rewriting the whole thing do??

I stared down at the paper before me which was drowning in red ink. A 54. This woman really gave me a F, that's not even passing.

"Should I rewrite the whole thing or was there something more specific I'm missing?" I asked in a state of confusion.

"Well..." she began, "the paper lacked focus and strayed from the prompt. The thesis wasn't clear nor was it fully supported... and also the grammar was lacking. Thus, I would suggest you rewrite the whole thing and return it to me by Monday" she summarized clasping her hands together.

Grammar? I used Grammarly on this. I wasn't gonna pay $35 for grammarly-pro, is this woman crazy? FAFSA doesn't cover that. Does she wanna pay for it?

"So you're saying... I should rewrite seven pages... by Monday?" I muttered hoping she didn't really hear me. "Yes. You can always take it to the writing lab to have a peer tutor look at a rough draft over for you. If I see you putting in the extra work to make up for this i'll surely add that into your new grade. Some of your peers work in the writing lab so I'm sure it wouldn't be that uncomfortable of an experience!" she postulated with a smile.

Gee I wish that train crashed today.

"I'd encourage you to take this opportunity Peter as I don't usually offer students the chance to resubmit" Flannigan insisted.

I pressed my lips together and nodded my head.

"Have a good weekend Peter" she said to me as I made my way out the door.

Writing Lab? What a joke.

-

After finishing Wednesday's set of classes, all I had on my mind was Aunt May's words and the grade I got on the English paper. I didn't see how I could rewrite the whole paper by Monday, especially seven pages. The weekends most usually were dedicated to my "night job" as I call it, and so I didn't see how I could get this paper rewritten by then, especially one that wouldn't get me another failing grade.

After commuting home I headed straight to my room to rethink this paper. I didn't want to sacrifice my night for this but I also couldn't afford Aunt May asking me in the future about why I had to retake Writing I. Stressfully I decided to make some of the major edits to the paper Flanigan had marked and work the rest out tomorrow.