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BROOKE'S GRADES WERE STARTING TO SLIP, AND SHE TRIED TO PRETEND IT WASN'T BECAUSE HER ENTIRE LIFE WAS CONSUMED BY THE ART PROJECT. In a shocking turn of events, Liz was the one who was forced to convince her to go to sleep and not stay up too late doing something for the school that wouldn't affect her grades. The senior often had to take Brooke's art supplies and lock them in her room until the morning, either forcing her to get started on her actual schoolwork or to go to sleep.
"I know you're not as academically inclined, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try," Liz sighed, as she pushed Brooke towards her math class for after school tutoring.
"But Liz, I only got two put up this week, and I set aside nine initially, I don't want people to think I'm slacking—" Brooke argued, but Liz shushed her, pressing her hand against her mouth.
"Brooke," the older girl said slowly, looking her right in the eye, "Take it from someone who knows. I get that you want to get everything done, that you don't want people to think that you can't do it, that you're lazy or all these other stereotypes they place on you, but you need to think of yourself first. Your grades determine if you even graduate, think about that before applying to college, okay?"
Brooke pushed her sister's hand away, adjusting her backpack. "You're the one worried about college. Not me."
With that, she walked into the classroom and took a seat, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach that she had pushed away someone she had wanted to stop drifting.
But the mention of college sent a shiver down her spine for no reason other than she went to an science-focused school that her parents spent a fortune on, and was planning on going into the arts later in life. Of course, she still had to bring that up with her parents, the people who were planning on paying for her education, but the point still stood that everything about this felt incredibly wrong.
"Brooke, are you here for tutoring?" her teacher asked, walking over towards her.
Brooke took a deep breath and sighed. "I guess so."
º º º
"We looked at your grades."
Brooke practically ran to her room, locking her door behind her, muffling the sound of her mother calling after her, demanding to discuss the steady decline that could be seen, the buildup of all the work that Brooke hadn't been doing; it had only been a week, but most of her classes had dropped drastically.
"Doris, don't yell at her, she won't listen to you," her father argued from the living room, his mother scoffing at his words.
Gritting her teeth, Brooke grabbed her phone and headphones, blasting her music into her ears and throwing herself onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow, because the last thing she heard before she drowned out the argument was, 'Liz.'
