Rhekker || Never Let Go

Extra Chapter: Those Report Cards

As soon as Connor came home, he sees Ava sitting on the couch with her forehead in her palm, her brows deeply furrowed. In front of her is the little boy, standing quietly. The boy has his head down but his eyes glancing side to side, obviously unconvinced.

Seeing him back, the little boy grins, "Daddy!" He throws a look at him for help and wants to run over, but looks at his mother and finally doesn't dare to move.

Connor is amused. Suppressing his smile, he slowly puts down the groceries, takes off his shoes, and leisurely paces over: "What's the matter?"

Ava straightens her back, sighs deeply, and pointed to the paper on the table: "Here, see for yourself."

Connor picks it up. It's a report card. He takes a closer look. Oh boy. No wonder. A page full of C's and D's. Wait, there's one A+ — Physical Education.

Although he dotes on his children, he never equivocates on the crucial matters: "Listen to your mother. My grades were never this bad when I was a kid."

The little boy, who had been looking at him expectantly, pouts in dismay and mutters: "That's a lie. You got terrible grades when you were little. Mommy told me all about it."

Connor glares at the first half. But hearing that it was his wife and seeing Ava's innocent look, there is immediately no objection. Still, though, he tries to save some face. He glances at his son: "Still better than yours. I'm going to find them now and we can compare." Without giving the boy a chance to answer, he immediately turns around to the library.

Ava sighs. A man of this age and he wants to compete with his child.

A short moment later, Connor returns with two thick folders. This is thanks to his old housekeeper, who had carefully kept all his school report cards as a child. They brought it with them when they moved and he added the ones since college himself.

The trio turns over the top sheets of paper. As soon as they see the content, the little boy and Ava start to giggle. She was right — all C's and D's, even a few F's!

The boy looks at his father triumphantly, raising a brow. Taking his eyes off Ava's face with a smile, Connor glares at his son and flips forward. The boy's smile slowly disappears — from late high school through college and medical school, his father had almost straight A's.

"That's nothing. Your mother was the best." Watching the boy's reactions, he pulls out the other folder underneath — Ava was careful to keep all her report cards in good order — and flips it open. The boy widens his eyes. All A+'s. Lots of perfect scores even during college and medical school.

The boy looks at his mother's smiling face, the folder, and back at his own report card, then suddenly darts back into his room, slamming the door with a bang.

"What are you doing?" Ava leans forward, a little worried.

"Homework!" The boy's spirited voice comes through the door.

Ava smiles with relief. The boy's clever, just not serious enough about school. He only got this grade because he didn't do his homework — and for a strange reason — he thought they were too easy and weren't challenging enough.

She turns back and sees Connor looking at her as if he's looking at a rare treasure. "What?" She pouts playfully.

Connor looks into her eyes, his smile unchanged: "I was thinking, how was I able to marry such a wonderful wife?"

What happened later this evening is another story. All we know is that after this day, the boy's report card had only that pointy letter.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

It's April and it's uni finals month for me. I'm gonna have to stop updating for a while to focus on exams. Most importantly the amount of studying I'm doing is severely affecting my ability to think about the emotions I want to convey in the writing. I wanted to finish chapter 15 but thought it wasn't good enough to post.

So I made this little extra chapter inspired by school and grades, hopefully you guys enjoyed it! If you are willing to stick with my writing, I'll see you guys back at the end of the month! Thank you so much for all the support and good luck to anyone else having finals!