Always

Chapter 47

*Note I honestly had no idea how an academic decathlon worked. I researched some but just decided to create my own thing. I am well aware it probably wouldn't work in the real world. I tried my best*

The day flew by in a blur. By some miracle, I stayed in one piece. Midtown's first round happened to be the essay. They led us and our opponent, a school from Virginia to a back room.

All the students were spread across the room. I heard afterwards that the other teams were also doing the essay, but in different rooms as we all couldn't fit in one. At each seat was a packet. Everyone had exactly an hour to write a specific type of essay. Once the timer started, we were instructed to flip over the packet. It was then we would know what passage we were reading and what type of essay we needed to write. I personally got a passage from The Great Gatsby. I had to write an analysis essay on the green light.

I hated analyzing things. Especially pieces of literature. How many times do I have to ask people do they really think an author was writing a story with a future English Class in mind? Like did they really have some super special secret meaning behind a stupid green light on a dock? I personally didn't think so. But I guess important school leaders did or I wouldn't have been writing an essay about it at the United States Decathlon.

Once the hour was up, the essays were turned in. The judges of the essay portion would read them all and grade each student on thoroughness, thought process, spelling and punctuation, and essay format. The score was out of 5. The school with the highest score won that section. Which gained them points for the overall score as well.

After the essay portion, it was debate time. This was the start of the televised portion of the decathlon. Two schools were assigned one of the tables on the main stage. The topic was then told to us. We then had 8 minutes to prepare our arguments. The entertaining part was that we were able to watch all the debates while we were waiting for our turn.

Our debate topic happened to be whether or not the US Constitution is a living, breathing document. Midtown was selected to defend that it was while our opponent had to argue against. Which I was relieved about as I tended to lean more towards that the constitution needs to be edited as times change. Overall, I thought our debate ended pretty well. They were not going to announce the winners until the very end when we would find out which two teams entered the super quiz. But I walked away feeling quite proud of myself and my team. Liz presented a home run of an ending statement. Even Flash had a good counterargument against the opposing team leader.

Walking down the stairs off the stage to our section of the theater, with applause filling my ears, I couldn't help but smile at the camera that was livestreaming our event. Maybe dad and Aunt Nat are watching, I thought as I took a seat.

The waiting period till our next event was slightly boring. Let's just say some of schools did not have the best debate teams...there was some awkward moments of silence and looks being exchanged if an argument that was being made didn't quit hit a home run.

But on the other hand, there were also some good schools. So that feeling of being secure and in a good spot slowly disappeared. As each debate unfolded, the knot of stress and fear become tighter and tighter in my stomach. Why did life always seem to go that way? One moment you have all the happiness and optimism dancing around in your heart, then BAM. One small poke and the joy just leaks out like a dam being breached. And once the stress, overthinking, and fear rushes in, it seems impossible to remove it.

I was fighting. Hard. Fighting with my mind and with my heart. Any spare minute that hadn't had me focused on the decathlon was spent trying to harbor in those good feelings. I was proud of myself for making it this far. I had survived the essay. I had survived the debate. I just had the first rapid left and product design.