Mark My Words

89 | Bet

a/n: 
Y'all: I bet she isn't gonna post.
Me: Bet.

Rosalie's thumbnail was nonexistent, so she had moved on to her pinkie nail as she sat through French. French was the class that made it most obvious to Rosalie (and their entire French group, really) that Joanna Spencer had Fucked Up. Rosalie's view to the front of the classroom was unobscured now by Joanna's vibrant orange hair and poor posture. She found herself staring at the open space as their test scores were handed back one-by-one.

Their teacher came down the aisle with a stack of papers, slipping them to students as she went. She skipped over Joanna's seat and went on to Jamie-Lee's.

Rosalie straightened a little when she realized that she had been slouching. She looked up at her teacher's face, but found her already turning to Dylan Cox, and then Lennie. Rosalie's hand hesitated over the folded corner of her paper when she heard their teacher say, "Job well done, Mr. Pittmen."

She didn't say that to me, Rosalie thought, lips pursed tight. She swallowed hard and discretely curved the packet of paper so Jamie-Lee couldn't see the score when she unfolded the corner.

93%.

Rosalie felt like she was watching her valedictorian status fall right into Lennie Pittmen's hands.

She folded the corner back up and put her pinkie nail back between her teeth. She felt so infuriated with herself that it made her stomach churn, boiling like the blood under her skin. How could she let herself get so distracted? She couldn't blame it on Nationals, Regionals, or State.

Then why haven't I been focused? she wondered, her eyes spacing out all around the general vicinity of the empty desk.

She turned her test upside down as the bell rang. The frustration simmered into a healthy (or rather, severely unhealthy) dose of embarrassment as she heard Lennie stand from his seat behind her.

A finger tapped on the side of her desk. She startled and looked up to find Jamie-Lee smiling at her, leant over his knees, test in hand. "What'd you get for number ten?"

"Oh, um..." Rosalie started, awkwardly, her hands flat over her test. She didn't even think to look at the questions she got wrong. In her mind, every last question was scribbled over in red cross marks.

"Dude, you can just ask me to go over it with you later," Lennie said. Rosalie glanced over at him where he was standing at the other side of her desk, books under one arm. He gestured vaguely to Rosalie and said, "She's probably got better things to do than tutor you."

Jamie-Lee got all uppity in an instant, hands on his hips. "Excuse you, but tutoring me would be a dream."

"Yeah, because you're such a dreamboat, dude," Dylan mocked with a roll of his eyes.

Rosalie started packing up her things without saying a word as the three of them argued over it. "She's still got practices to focus on anyway—"

"Who said I was even suggesting a tutor? I speak perfect French."

"Écrire, c'est une autre histoire," Lennie said, and Jamie-Lee tipped his head to the side and squinted a little.

As Jamie scratched his head over what Lennie just said, Rosalie rose from her seat and snuck past Lennie, though "sneaking" wasn't exactly possible in a half-empty classroom. It took less than a second for them to realize it, and when they did, their footsteps trailed after her. She felt like she was at the head of a bundle of ducklings as they left the classroom together, and went to the cafeteria—together.