The Absurdity of Fairy Tales

nine

..

You're in my head and my lungs

And my heart and my veins.

I wish I could let you go,

So the ghost of you

Can't haunt me

Anymore.

..

Delta goes on for the rest of January, and it keeps me busy enough that I forget about exams until they're a week away and I'm scrambling for study time.

I turn into a wild animal, this weird freak that makes flash cards and randomly whips them out to quiz her friends. No one around me is spared; Nick, who gets the worst of it, finally becomes so fed up he takes my beautiful, lovingly-made study notes and stuffs them in the back of his gym locker. I drink my body weight in coffee and eat twice that in junk food, and my sleeping schedule—which was unpredictable to begin with—goes off the charts; some nights, I stay awake 'til three cramming in Shakespeare dissection.

By the time exams finally roll around, it's a miracle that I still have friends. I'm pretty sure I've given everyone a few grey hairs and a complex or two about school diligence. Thankfully, they stick around. Nick's seen me a lot worse, after all; I guess exam panic is a piece of key lime pie after watching me self-destruct.

Fortunately, the exam-panic pays off; I pass with two high eighties and a low ninety. Nick, being the smart kid he is, keeps his 4.0 GPA; he even gets the highest mark—97%—in his coding class. His teacher was so impressed he recommended Nick to his friend in the University of Nova's software design department. But Nick just blushes and tells me to shut up when I say U of N's going to beg to have him. (Which, of course, just makes me say it more.)

We go out for celebratory milkshakes at Milly's after we pick up our report cards, and after that, to one of Nolan's parties. We don't stay there for long; I like Nolan, but his parties aren't exactly my—or Nick's—scene. We end up standing around awkwardly for about twenty minutes, surrounded by a chaotic cloud of sweat, crappy rap music and raging teenage hormones, before calling it quits.

Everything's coming up roses until we get our second semester timetables and find out we have but one period and lunch together. Even our spares are different—mine's second last period, and Nick's is last because he has Gym—so we can't even walk home together after school. Nick laughs at me when I whine to him, but the truth is I've become used to walking home with him these last four years. I didn't realize how much I'd miss walking home with him until it's no longer a possibility.

By the time I've accepted the change, Doomsday, AKA Valentine's Day, has arrived. Along with The Anniversary, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and my birthday, it's one of my least favorite days. Call me a Grinch, but to me, Valentine's Day is just a capitalist excuse for couples to flaunt their relationships in everyone else's faces. Like: yay! Let's celebrate our 'love' by gifting arbitrary status markers that serve the sole purpose of making ourselves look better in front of other people? Doesn't that sound great?

I'm a big enough person to acknowledge that maybe—just maybe—I'm a little bitter, but when the school turns pink and red and the already crowded hallways are blocked off by a crowd of kids sucking face, I want to punch something.

I must make some sort of disgusted noise when Nick and I walk into the circus, because I can feel him smirking at me. If anything, he enjoys the holiday purely because of my hatred for it; it's about the only time he's an asshole. I just grit my teeth and power-walk over to my locker, head held stubbornly high, but unfortunately, it's already busy.