▎. . . In which seven boys meet in the school counsellor's office every week and are given a group project to work on for the year.
UNDERGOING REWRITING
sidemen...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 nice, Vik decided, when he finally experienced it for the first time. An empty house on a mid-August morning, as fairy dust seeped through the foamy glow of the sunlit windows. Every piece of scenery was amplified tenfold, and for the first time in years Vik relearned to appreciate his place in the world.
Careful steps tiptoeing around the kitchen, he came across his already made lunch, pristine as ever on the marble counter. On top of the box rested a sticky note:
Good luck on your Physics preliminary today! You're our little star! Xx
Vik had always known success, always known achievement, always known congratulations and half-arsed shakes of the hand. It was fulfilling to some extent, but what was he outside of academics? He ran the STEM club, had one of the best grade averages in the entire country, but who was he once he shed the skin of intelligence?
He wasn't quite sure.
Because, all his life, it had been practising and preparing for the inevitable. Getting into Cambridge, gaining a PhD, working as a doctor day after day until he finally dropped and, even then, he'd probably be working still once he got to Heaven.
Vik loved his family, appreciated his parents' sacrifices and hard work and, goodness, he wouldn't trade them for the world. But there was a lot of weight on his shoulders, pressing him down to the ground with so many projections. He'd give anything for the serenity of low expectations.
But he got on with it, because that's what everyone wanted. Zip your mouth shut, point your pencil down, follow the instructions set out for your future.
He did not do well on his Physics prelim. Quite the opposite, actually, because when Ms Day turned the paper around for him the next morning the far too bright letter B cowered in the corner of the page. Shit.
He knew what went wrong. The words had warped together, swirling within the beige frame in a typhoon of puzzles. Velocity became ferocity and question marks flipped upside-down. When Vik took his glasses off, things looked just the same. His heart pounded underneath his shirt and he felt far too lightheaded to be sitting down in a classroom, perfectly normal. Was this an aneurysm or something?
He dared to ask, How can I improve? but the teacher didn't even have an answer for him. She just gave him this stare, full of wistful disappointment, of all the potential she knew he possessed but wasn't harnessing.
