Ricky & Ryan
Ricky rushed into class, knowing he was late. It would be the third time this week he was late. The worst part would be that he didn't even have a valid reason to be late. He just walked slowly and spent too much time at his locker.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Ricky whispered as he slipped into one of the math rooms. He took his seat quickly as the teacher sighed. It wasn't like Mister Sitkowski was mean or difficult to deal with but he had a very low tolerance for people who didn't follow the syllabus. And the syllabus only stated three things: have a pencil, grades may be discussed after school only, and do not be late to class.
"So again, the square root of negative one is imaginary to the first, fifth, ninth, etcetera." Mister Sitkowski reviewed for another student. He quickly slipped to his desk and scribbled a note, handing it to Ricky as he answered another question. These words just floated through one of Ricky's ears and out the other though, due to the fact he was reading over and over the four simple words: "see me after school."
In defeat, Ricky rested his head on the desk and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened up his eyes, the bell for the end of class was ringing. He quickly grabbed his bag and walked to his last class of the day, advanced drawing. He thought it would be easy to get though but now there was too much filling his head for him to put on paper.
He did a bit of sketching in his book but didn't want to work on his project. Nothing truly interested him and everything seemed too complicated to put down in pencil. Eventually, the bell rang too, which just resulted in an exasperated sigh from Ricky.
With resistance in his step, he trudged to Mister Sitkowski's room. Some of his friends and classmates gave him questioning looks as he stepped into the belly of the beast, but he couldn't turn back now. As his foot crossed the threshold, he couldn't help but feel the tension.
"Late and now sleeping in my class too? Close the door please." Mister Sitkowski's asked immediately. Ricky sighed and nodded, swallowing hard. He was scared to be all alone with a teacher. What were they going to say that required privacy?
Ricky took a seat by Mister Sitkowski's desk, shaking nervously. He kept his head down as he waited for his teacher to finish organizing a few things. A paper was handed to Ricky and he looked at it questioningly.
"What is it?" Mister Sitkowski asked as he noticed how confused Ricky was by the worksheet. He handed him a pencil too, watching as Ricky took it carefully.
"You just want me to make up what I missed in class?" Ricky furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at his instructor, who just nodded. He turned to sit straight in his desk and began to scribble his name on the paper. Under the line left for the date, it said quiz, which caused Ricky to panic.
"You expect me to take a quiz on something I never learned!?" Ricky looked over the page quickly, able to understand a few of the questions but more than half of them left him clueless.
"I guess you've been late, falling asleep, and not paying attention." Mister Sitkowski huffed. He dropped to sit in his desk chair, rolling it up to Ricky's side. He set a hand on Ricky's thigh, looking over a few of the problems.
"For this first one, all you have to do is factor. And you know the first two terms are X, go from there." Ricky nodded, creating a set of parentheses and beginning to guess and check answers. Eventually, he gave up though, unable to find the two numbers that added to seven and multiplied to 12.
"Fuck it." Ricky huffed as he slammed the pencil down on the table top, resting his head in his hands. He would've gotten up but his teacher was blocking his exit.
