Out To Get Her

26| I Literally Could Not Care Less

THE LIGAMENTS IN Parker's knee are strained. He should be able to play the next game, but he has to be super careful until then, and go easy on it practice. He'll be on crutches and in a knee brace off the field, and also wearing a permanent scowl apparently. It's understandable though, it's his last season, and it's important for all the guys to be seen playing at their best in front of college scouts. The timing is really rotten luck.

The guys got lucky in the game against Greenridge. Somehow, they managed to pull through with one more goal in the last two minutes. Dean was the one who scored it.

They made it to the semi-finals.

Now, two days later, Alex is just attempting to get her calculus homework finished so that Mrs. Hunt doesn't actually murder her.

But she isn't getting any work done. Why? Her super annoying and overbearing best friend of course!

"But I'm bored," Dylan whines, flipping through one of Alex's textbooks without actually looking at anything.

"I literally could not care less," Alex grits out, "Stop touching my stuff."

He groans, shutting the textbook and flipping over in the grass, knocking down Alex's pile of books in the process.

"Dylan!"

"Sorry, sorry," he mutters, sitting up to put them back into a pile.

Alex sighs through her nose and focuses on taking deep breaths, before returning to the question she was on.

"Alex," Dylan pokes her side, his head appearing in front of her page, "Please entertain your favorite human. He's about to die of boredom."

Alex shoves his forehead to the side, forcing his head away from her work and making him collapse in the grass from the precarious position he was balanced in.

He groans and untangles his own limbs, rolling onto his stomach to peer at her textbook, shoving his curly hair in Alex's face.

"Dylan," she growls, throwing down her pen, "I am going to murder you if you do not get out of my way right now."

He laughs, flopping onto his back and throwing an arm across his eyes to shield them from the sun.

"Finally," she flips the page of her textbook and continues to jot down the notes for the equation she is on.

"But Alex," Dylan whines, a moment later, "Can't you do that later?"

She grinds her teeth, "No, Dylan, as a matter of fact, I cannot. Why? Because it is DUE NEXT PERIOD, YOU ASSHOLE."

Huffing, she whips around and begins to haphazardly shove her textbooks into her bag. A gentle hand on her arm stops her in her tracks. She sighs and turns to face her best friend, who is no longer wearing his overly amused smile.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs earnestly, "I should have realized how stressed you were about this."

Alex sighs, slumping back down and resting her weight against the tree trunk behind her, "It's alright, Dyl. I'm sorry for snapping at you. My mom's been hounding me about exams, and I've been struggling to focus. Not a good combo."

He smiles, "I deserved it. Now tell me what question you're on, maybe I can help."

She points at the purple textbook hanging half out of her bag, "Page one hundred and eighty-two. Question seven."

She can hear him grab it and begin flipping through the pages. Alex takes a moment to breathe, inhaling the woodsy scent and squinting through the branches above her.

"Differential equations? Oof. Let's give this a go, shall we?"

"Fine," Alex leans forward and snatches her pen up from the dirt.

Dylan hands her the page she had been working on, there is a rip down the margin.

Sighing she shoves it into her folder and gets a clean sheet.

"Aren't you worried about Parker?" She eyes her best friend as he smooths down the textbook.

He stills, "Yes. But he's been cleared to play, so I just don't want to worry about it anymore."

"Alright," Alex scribbles the date at the top of the page, "Walk me through question seven then, Mister Math Genius."

That earns a chuckle out of him, before he flips the hair out of his eyes and begins to explain.

~*~

"Please fill in the worksheets I am now handing out to you all," Mr. Leyton says, walking through the row of desks, thumbing through pages and placing them in front of blank faced students as he goes. "You'll find that they get trickier as you go along, but I trust that you've all done last night's reading, and the second time over each piece of text will make it very clear what the question is asking of you. These questions are also phrased similarly to those that will appear in the exam, so take note of that. If you don't understand anything, ask for help. When the exam comes around, you'll need to understand them, and I won't be there to help you then."

Alex stares down at the questions in front of her. The words can't seem to sink into her brain, and she exhales as she reaches for her pen.

'Focus,' she thinks desperately to herself, 'You need to understand this.'

She scribbles her name and the date at the top. After a moment, she focuses her gaze on the first question. 'What is the meaning of...' The words filter in and out of Alex's brain immediately, making it impossible to understand.

Internally freaking out, she grips the edge of her desk so hard that her knuckles turn white.

"Is everything alright, Ms Taylor?" Mr Leyton eyes her from his perch against his desk in the front of the room.

"Yes," she responds immediately.

He nods, and eyes her a moment longer before continuing his scan around the room.

Alex attempts to read over the question again, but nothing sinks in and she sighs frustratedly before dumping her pen back into her pencil case. Resting her head in her hands, elbows propped up on the desk, she inhales deeply and exhales as quietly as she can in the silent classroom. Now is most definitely not the time to freak out, and it is certainly the worst possible place to.

She raises her hand. "Could I go to the bathroom, please?"