Broken Light

~ Chapter Nine ~

Lexie looks frustrated as she looks down at the paper in her hands while Jules fidgets in the corner, extremely nervous. From his expression, I know that he's showing his mom a test he hasn't done too well on. I used to have a similar expression on my face when I was in his shoes; a look of absolute horror.

Lexie takes a deep breath and sits down by the coffee table. She's a perfectionist to a rather large degree and has always wanted Jules to do well in school, hence why she got frustrated when he didn't. I've always been more of a chill person who lays back and lets the kid do whatever he wants. You can't force someone to be something they're not, a fact that the majority of the world seems to purposefully ignore.

"Jules," Lexie says in the calm, collected voice of a mom who's trying to hold back on her anger. "Is there a reason why more than half the questions on your math test are incorrect?" Jules looks down at the floor as tears start to form in his eyes. He shrugs.

"I completely forgot about the test," he mutters under his breath. "I didn't mean to, Mommy! It won't happen again." Lexie nods, still holding the calm, collected look.

"And do you care to explain why you hid this test from me?" Right there and then, Jules bursts out crying.

"I'm sorry!" he cries in between breaths. "I didn't want to get you mad, Mommy! I'm sorry!" I take a step forward with the intentions of coming to Jules' defense. I feel bad for him. It's not his fault that math is one of his weaker spots.

"But hey," I try to say cheerfully. "That won't happen again though, right Jules?" He frantically nods his head and looks over at his mom, his eyes begging for forgiveness.

"Alright," Lexie says after what seems like ages. "Your next test is in 2 days, Jules, and you can prove to me if you can really hold up to that promise. If you have more than 5 questions wrong on that test, I'll have to cancel your birthday party." I had never seen Jules that horrified in my whole entire life. His eyes widen and his mouth grows wide open, but he knows, just as well as I do, that when Lexie has her mind set on something, that's how things will run.

Lexie storms out of the living room, probably to run one of her many errands. I look at Jules' tiny hands as he wipes away his tears. He looks at me sheepishly and I smile at him. I bend down to get in level with his eyes.

"It's alright, Jules," I try to comfort him. "I didn't do well on all my tests either when I was in school."

"Did you do well in math?" He asks out of pure curiosity. "Cause I know Mommy did really well in math." I ponder on that thought for a few seconds. I understood math rather well and so I did okay on the tests. I was never the one student who constantly aced the tests, but I wasn't the polar opposite either.

"I did okay in math," I finally tell him. "I did understand the subject."

"Did you ever ace a test?" I can't help but laugh at the thought. Throughout my whole high school experience, I had almost always been close to that 100% but never quite there. There has only been a single time in my entire life that I got that A+ on my math exam paper. And I can't take full credit for it either. I had a tremendous amount of help from one of the best students in my school whose math was levels ahead what most of us could do. If that hadn't gotten me that 100%, I would have given up on math a long time ago.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When the first bell rang, I exited the classroom as fast I could and came face-to-face with Renee. She had her dark eyebrows raised and her big eyes pinched, asking a question without even needing to say the words out loud. I couldn't help but give her a big smile as I waved the exam paper in her face.