Big Girl Boots

Two

"And," Mrs. Grant added, dramatically waving the stack of papers in her hand, "this worksheet needs to be done by tomorrow. Understood?"

Half of the class let out half-hearted yeahs and the other half, me included, scrunched a little further down in their desks trying to find a way to get out of doing the assignment. 

I hated English, I hated math, and I was really bad at science. That left speech as the only class I both enjoyed and was decent at, but since I was in it with two ultra-shy kids it was hard to get excited.

Now, slouching in my seat and internally whining about the worksheets that were being passed down the rows, I wasn't so sure I even enjoyed speech. And if the year continued with impossible worksheets, I had a feeling I might end up despising it along with the rest of my classes.

School work, in general, was not my thing. I would easily prefer to go out and do something hands on like learn to drive a forklift or work on my roping or chase calves over writing until my hand went numb about things that would never apply to real life. But I was, along with all of the other high school juniors in the same boat as me, stuck in this hell for another two years. Thankfully, I'd gotten through the first two years, and that gave me at least a teeny bit of confidence that I would manage to graduate and move on to bigger and better things.

I had long since decided that any degree that would take longer than four years to achieve was totally impossible for me. Even those four years would be pushing it, and I knew I needed to look into something that would take closer to two. Depending on how well this speech class actually went, I might look into something in the field of marketing or sales. The semester of early economics I'd taken as a sophomore had been interesting and I sometimes wondered if that wasn't something to check out.

"What did you get for three?" Kellan leaned over to hiss, interrupting my thoughts.

"Um," I stared at my totally blank paper, avoiding the disapproving look I knew would be in his eyes. While I'd inherited my mother's attitude, Kellan had definitely gotten his own mom's ability to give looks that could make a person wilt.

I sat up a little straighter and signed my name at the top with a flourish, looking down at it with satisfaction. One less thing to do.

"Blake," he sighed, annoyed. Not that this was anything new for the two of us.

"I'm working on it," I snapped, hunching over the stupid piece of paper and finally reading the first question. It was something about holding the attention of a room and I quickly circled eye contact.

"Just let me know when you get there." Where his annoyance was a regular occurrence, him asking me for help was definitely out of the ordinary. Had I not been facing a worksheet that I had no desire to complete, I might've reveled in that feeling.

But, I didn't have the time for that. Scanning the next question, I scribbled in something about good posture that me, or anybody else, probably wouldn't be able to read the next day.

"It's definitely a catchy introduction," I informed Kellan, noticing the way Coda's ears perked up and how she hurried to record my answer. Maybe I really was the smart one here.

The bell rang and we filed out with the rest of our junior class. Kellan went to his locker on the end of the hall and traded out some books before he left. Work release was his last class of the day, meaning he literally got credit for going and making money. Coda and I headed off to art, which was a huge, cold room on the other end of the school.

"Are you gonna start that painting yet?" I questioned, letting my heavy backpack fall to the concrete floor with a resounding thud.

Her eyes were thoughtful as she eased herself onto a tall metal stool in front of the drafting table we'd claimed as our own. There was a handful of freshman in the class as well, but we'd gotten first pick as upperclassmen. "I don't know yet. I might do a little more sketching first, just so it's perfect."