the hating game ; lrh

four

"RORY, WOULD YOU STAY behind for a minute?"

It's Friday, and the last period of the day, and I had just spent seventy-five minutes working on algebraic equations -- fun. So, when Miss Lacey asked me to stay behind, even if for only a minute, I was understandably unimpressed.

"You too, Luke," Miss Lacey nods at the blonde boy, gesturing for him to approach her table with me. I eye Luke suspiciously, the only words running through my mind being: what has he done now? Luke returns that exact look, his blue eyes glaring at me in shock and suspicion.

Nonetheless, I sweep my books up in one arm and approach the front of the room, where Miss Lacey's desk sits begrudgingly. Luke soon appears by my side, backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Now," Miss Lacey takes the seat at her desk and begins fiddling through the array of papers that are splayed across it. "I'll cut to the chase. Miss Hood, I'm assuming you wish to graduate at the end of this year with your peers?"

"Yes," I respond, a dull expression on my face. What kind of question was that?

"Well, that won't be happening unless your grades in my class begin to lift," she continues on, not even pausing to peer up at me through her stupidly big red glasses.

"Wait, wha—?" I begin to backtrack — my grades? Admittedly, I had never been wonderful in Spanish, but I certainly wasn't failing. Was I?

"Thankfully, Mr Hemmings here is performing exceptionally well in my class and is in need of some extra credits," Miss Lacey doesn't stray from continuing to pry through her own papers, and at this point I wasn't even sure that she was actually looking for anything on her desk.

"Hold on, I—" I attempt to interrupt again, only to be cut off.

"He will tutor you until you carry a seventy-percent average at least. Now, typically students are tutored once a week, but under these circumstances I would recommend twice at least, perhaps—"

"Just hold on for a minute!" I finally explode, exasperated and mostly confused. Miss Lacey finally looks up from her desk, her hands pausing their seemingly endless rustling and her blue eyes staring right up at me. "What the hell is going on? I'm not failing this class and I don't need tutoring, especially not from him."

Luke scoffs next to me, but I do my best not to acknowledge his presence. Without even glancing down at her messy desk, Miss Lacey plucks a random paper from the pile and slaps it on top of the others. "I'm afraid not. This is your result from yesterday's quiz."

A big, fat 20% is plastered at the top of the page, blindingly red and impossible to miss. I feel a blush creep up my cheeks and cough nervously, hoping that somehow Luke hasn't seen the test result — I didn't need to add this to the list of things he could tease me about.

"Maybe I had a bad day?" I suggest, though I'm not even sure of the words myself.

Again, Miss Lacey plucks five more papers from the mess and slaps them next to the first. They all read grades less than fifty-percent, confirming that I was, in fact, failing.

"Apparently not," Luke mumbles — the first time he's spoken the entire meeting — and I shoot him an icy glare that he swiftly ignores.

"I'm afraid that there's no other option than this," Miss Lacey says, and for the first time I actually believe in her sincerity. "That is, if you want to graduate."

"I do, it's just—" I pause to sigh and tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear. "Does it have to be him? Couldn't it be someone else?"

Luke scoffs again beside me, and is again ignored.