Back in Cherrywood

Winter's Glow

Chapter 10: When the lights go out

It was after 11pm and Mia was getting frustrated, and tired, and about ten other things. Winter finals were this week and she felt like the stress of it would crush her. Not to mention that the big swim off was in two weeks, too. How on earth would she manage all of this? Why did her school have to cram so many things in before Christmas? She turned the page of her math book in annoyance. She sure as hell wouldn't choose any major that had anything to do with math, or chemistry, or physics. She truly didn't understand how easily it all came to Lilli. She seemed to get good grades in any subject without much effort, and certainly without the freakouts Mia was always having. She then remembered that Lilli had already declared her major and her school of choice to Mr. Ludvison, but she hadn't bothered to ask her what it was! In fact, she now realized she had sort of forgotten a bit about Lilli the past few weeks. Her Isla were so busy with practices, and mock swim offs, and extra gym sessions, they didn't really spend much time with her, and unlike Isla, Mia and Lilli hadn't really developed a texting friendship yet.

She yawned as she wrote the numbers of a new math problem and glanced over at her phone. 11:23pm. She really didn't feel like she could focus anymore, maybe she should get some sleep now and try to wake up before 5 to do some more work.

Beep,beep,beep. Mia tried to open her eyes while tapping on her nightstand blindly. She couldn't remember for what time she had set the alarm, but it felt like the middle of the night. She turned on her back as she tried to read her screen. Where was the snooze button? Is it in the middle or down? Her eyes opened a little more as she finally hit the off button. It was 4:45am, and her head felt heavy and a little achy. She had gotten just a little over 4 hours of sleep, it really wasn't great. How on earth would she get through the day on that? And she had yet another extra practice on her lunch break. It would be a very long day, she thought, as she slipped out from underneath her covers and quickly grabbed her West River Swim Team hoodie. It was technically not winter yet, but the weather did not seem to care. It had been grey, foggy, and frosty all week. There were three weeks left until Christmas, yet the snow was nowhere to be seen. But at least Cherrywood had delivered on the holiday spirit. Liane had told her that Cherrywood's annual Christmas kick-off was this Friday, by when the houses that wanted to take part in the town's decoration competition would have to be finished, a big Christmas tree would be brought to Pike Square and unveiled on Friday at 6pm, The Pie Cousins of course would do their own thing, and, as Liane put it, there'd be events every single weekend. 'Cherrywood is crazy about Christmas,' she had told Mia over breakfast the other day.

Liane reluctantly walked down the stairs as she squinted at the light coming at her from the kitchen. It was just past 7am, but the sun wasn't up yet, and Mia was no doubt studying with a pot of coffee. She'd been spending every free minute on extra work, or studying, or preparing for the swim off, and Liane worried she would crack soon, but she was afraid to say anything. She had never seen Mia be in such a state over finals before, but the one time she tried talking to her she thought Mia would chew her head off, so she tried to be as accommodating and helpful as possible instead.

'Hey,' she said as she grabbed the empty coffee pot to clean it, 'what do you have today?'

Mia was packing up her things, and was already dressed in her uniform.

'Trig, Physics, German and intro to human rights.'

'Is that on top off your regular classes?'

Mia nodded.

'Holy crap, what time will you be done?'

'Depending on what mood Wulf and Hewitt will be, hopefully by 7pm.'

'That's insane,' Liane put the kettle on, 'how are you feeling?'

'Like crap,' Mia replied as she zipped up her backpack. Liane turned around to look at her, and try to guess what mood Mia was in. She was frowning and squinting, she was clearly tired and with Mia that meant a little extra irritable, and also a little extra emotional. Not a good combo for finals.