Moving Forward (Completed)

Chapter Sixty One

"Tenth grade..."

MJ sighed, dropping her spoon in her bowl of cereal. "Would you stop saying it like that?"

"Like what?" Katherine frowned into her coffee mug.

"Super sappy sounding." MJ smirked.

Katherine rolled her eyes. "I just doesn't feel that long ago that you were in my class."

MJ chuckled, "it wasn't."

It had only been four years since MJ started fourth grade, a student teacher relationship that began rocky at best, but had quickly shifted when Katherine had been the first teacher to challenge her. Most of her previous teachers had either avoided confrontation and let her do as she pleased, or continuously butted heads with her in a need to show who was in charge. Katherine had acknowledged her intelligence and pushed her to work on assignments that she had to actually think about, assignments she actually enjoyed working on.

MJ looked up to see Katherine watching her eat her cereal. "What?"

"I can't believe how grownup you're becoming."

"You two need a baby or something..." MJ grumbled, shoving another bite of cereal into her mouth.

MJ had no idea they were trying, but Katherine was in a good place with the process of conceiving and simply grinned at MJ's grumble. The ovulation test she taken showed she was ovulating which was a good start. She'd brushed aside the last year as circumstantial since they hadn't really been monitoring anything, and had resigned not to freak out again until after giving it another six months.

"I'm serious, it's crazy to think that in three years you'll be going off to college."

MJ sighed, pushing a few soggy squares around her milk. "I don't feel very grown up."

"Don't take this the wrong way, I love Izzy, but you're a lot more mature than she is."

MJ chuckled lightly. "I know, for as smart as she is she can act really childish at times." Still, it wasn't Isabel she was referencing. "The other kids don't feel quite as immature though."

Katherine furrowed her brow. "You act more mature than I did in high school."

"But I look twelve..."

Katherine chuckled, covering her mouth as she tried to apologize with her hand while stifling her laughter. "You're thirteen, you allowed to look twelve."

"A lot of the girls on my classes look way older than twelve..."

MJ had taken more academic based classes than was necessary each semester and while she was classified as a sophomore she was taking classes with juniors and seniors as well as classes at a local community college.

"Is that why you don't want to graduate any earlier than you already are?"

MJ exhaled, setting her spoon in the bowl. "I can handle being a sixteen year old college freshman... fourteen or fifteen feels way too soon."

"Especially if you go off somewhere out of state," Katherine nodded.

"How does college work?"

"What do you mean?"

"I... well..." MJ closed her eyes and took a breath, "if I don't get enough scholarships to cover everything?"

"All you need to do is focus on school, Raf and I have talked about when you go to college."

"You have?"

"Of course we have."

MJ looked concerned, her eyes bouncing about as she fretted over where she'd ultimately like to attend college. "What if I get into Harvard or Yale, but don't receive any scholarship money... I know Rafael makes a nice living, but that tuition is too much. Not to mention room and board, and..." her concern had shifted to full on panic.