Six Feet Under

Chapter 19 //

Valeria Ramos

3:40 P.M.

    "How do you think you did on the chemistry pre-exam?" Madeleine Fletcher asked me—a strawberry blonde-haired, freckle-faced, lanky-legged girl in me and Joselyn's grade.

I replied. "Me? Horrible. The grades are up and I refuse to look at them."

Madeleine, Joselyn, and I—we had just finished warm-up before our first cross country meet of the season, and we were pampering our sweaty and dehydrated selves in the girl's locker room. I sat on a cold, white-barred bench that was almost flat to the floor, with one foot pressed into the cool blue tiles, and one leg bent and huddled to my chest on the bench—I had my arms wrapped around it to keep it secure, balancing my chin on my kneecap. Joselyn stood at her teal-toned locker, her head buried in its contents—while she took desperate sips from her water bottle and wiped away beads of sweat with the back of her gentle hand. Madeleine was crouched on the floor, back pressed against the lower lockers and knees bent, looking upward toward Joselyn submissively. Joselyn, nor I, knew Madeleine Fletcher very well—other than her brilliance in sports; academically, she was a mystery to both of us. But she was always kind enough to ask about our well-being during in-between moments when she could.

"What about you, Joselyn?" Madeleine asked angelically while she stared at her.

Without peeling her eyes away from the depths of her locker, Joselyn replied instantly, hiding her pride behind a blank tone. "I already checked. 94," she said, slamming that creaky metal locker to an abrupt close.

Madeleine scoffed, but not with vicious intent—just at the comedy of Joselyn nailing everything perfectly without even trying, and pretending like it wasn't a big deal. "Are we surprised?" she blurted.

"Look at youuu," I purred. "Our future Ivy League attendee."

Joselyn shut the locker and spun the combination dial until she was pleased enough to stop. She turned around, her arms and legs still laced with sweat, and she smiled in a way that could only be described as flirtatious. She looked away from us shyly, as she could never bare compliments—the cheeks of her dark skin blushing a wine red.

Eventually, courageously—she made eye contact with me again, with that sickly sweet face that she had with no effort put in whatsoever. "Stop, guys," she whimpered shyly, incredibly flattered—before she switched to a more indifferent tone. "It's just luck."

"No it's not," Madeleine piped in. "Give yourself some credit, ScottWick," she kindly demanded.

    "Yeah," I added. "You're definitely smart enough to get into one of those elite universities. Harvard, or Columbia or something."

    Joselyn slid her back down the rows of lockers until she hit the cold floor. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly as she stared longingly at the ceiling. She let out a melancholic sigh.

    "'My parents want me to go to an Ivy League," she confessed. "It's all they've ever dreamed of. But I don't."

    "Why?!" Madeleine exclaimed in shock. She took the words right out of my mouth. "How could you not want to go to an Ivy League? You're more than capable of getting in, and you could probably do track and cross country while you're there. Why the hell would you pass up going to one of the best schools in the country?"