The prospect of school seemed completely nerve-wracking to Kiera. The only thing keeping her sane was Leah. However, Leah was absent. Kiera could not contain her nerves and was abnormally silent during class.
"Okay class, what it the answer to question four of the worksheet?" The teacher questioned.
No one answered.
"I'll pick someone. Kiera?" She panicked upon hearing her name. She looked at her own worksheet and read off the answer.
"Twenty-three pi," she hesitated before answering. Her class burst out laughing
"She's freaking retarded!" A boy sitting next to her whispered to his friend and snickered.
Kiera felt blood rushing to her cheeks. She thought in annoyance, 'Retardation isn't something to joke about! It's not an insult! Why can't people just understand that?'
"I asked for the answer to question four, not three, Kiera," the teacher rubbed his temples in exasperation, as if her incapability to follow his instructions caused him to have a headache.
"Oh erm... it's one hundred and forty-five point three two," she lowered her head in shame and replied. The teacher nodded his head and continued the lesson but she could not stop hearing people whispering about her. Some even talked about how Leah should not be friends with such a "stupid" person. Kiera tried her best to shrug it off. Leah was her best friend and not theirs, they should have thought about that.
She brought her focus back to class, writing down different methods of solving problems and questions she wanted to ask the teacher at the end of class. She was in one of the top schools purely based on hard work and motivation, she was not going to let some petty students distract her.
The minute the shrill sound of the bell resounded throughout the school and students rushed out rapturously in anticipation of seeing their friends and gossiping with them yet again. Kiera used the time to clear her doubts on the math topic they were going through.
After she was done, she sat in her classroom to wait for her chemistry teacher to enter the class. She took out her chemistry notes that she prepared the previous night for the new topic and read through them to prepare herself for the lesson.
Kiera was really diligent compared to other students. However, she was not always like that. She only got the motivation to study when she was eleven years old.
Before that, she was always below average. The pressure from her mother's high expectations and them always comparing her to Leah made her work harder in attempts to at least get on par with Leah. Her mother's expectations were simple. If she got anything lower than 80%, she would most likely get scolded and punished. Though she did not punish her very harshly, her disappointed face was enough of a punishment for her. She always strived to make her proud.
Honestly, her disappointed face was not the worst. The worst was the comparison of Kiera and Leah. It made Kiera envious of Leah, sometimes a little jealous too. She felt shameful. Shameful that she could not be as good as Leah. Shameful that she could not be better than Leah. Shameful that her mother would probably rather have Leah than her own child. But that made her work harder so that her mother would not feel how she felt--shameful.
"No pain, no gain!" That was what everyone told her, and it was true. Kiera worked hard, and her marks began improving drastically. She had a motivation, she had a goal she looked forward to achieving. With that, she became excited to go to school, excited to learn, excited to study.
Meanwhile, Leah was naturally smart. She did not need to write notes, did not need to revise, and could even skip some lessons, like she did that day. All she did was take tests and examinations and ace them. Kiera always felt that it was unfair, unfair that Leah did not need to try at all.
Kiera had to put in her all to even get to Leah's standard.
She accepted it. She always did it without complaining. She wanted to be worthy of being Leah's friend. She wanted Leah's parents to think of her as a good influence, and she accomplished it. She was always allowed to go to Leah's house, which was huge compared to a lot of other houses.
Students began flooding into the classroom chattering. It woke her from her thought bubble. 'Time to get on with the rest of the day. You can do it!' She encouraged herself.
