Ours

Love and Homework

On a Wednesday morning, when the almost full moon was still in the sky, a teen with bright magenta hair shuffled a deck of tarot cards. Neveah James slid card between card, all the while, their eyes on the cat alarm clock on their bedside table. Next to it was a calendar with one day marked in bright red. Today.

Their room was small, and the floor was tidier than that of an average teenager. However, this was counterbalanced by an abundance of clutter on every surface. Crystals stood in front of fairy lights and next to candles, little crochet animals stared on from every angle. Various pens and ignored memos lurked on every surface.

Neveah picked their card. They frowned when they saw it. Death. Without much delay, they began digging through a basket. After a short search, they pulled out a piece of fabric that bore a striking resemblance to the card they'd pulled. Their very own crochet tarot card.

Dissatisfied, they pulled another card from the deck. A small smile tugged at their lips as they recognised it. They quickly checked the basket and then returned the first tarot card into the deck. Once they'd picked some wool—blue and yellow, as well as some pink—they stuffed the card and wool into their satchel.

Hours later, Neveah sat at the back of their maths class, crocheting their own version of the Lovers. Should they have probably been paying attention? Yes. Did they care? Not really. Nobody actually needed to know how to abbreviate functions, and it wasn't like Neveah would ever need maths either. As long as they could scrape through their exams, they could do whatever they liked during the lessons—even their mother agreed, much to their maths teacher's dismay.

From a few desks over, a dark-haired Indian girl peered at them coldly. Neveah grinned and checked whether the teacher was looking before giving her a quick finger salute. Aiza soon looked away, but Neveah's grin wasn't as quick to fade. In fact, they were still perfectly content until five minutes before the lesson's end, Mr. Zupan cleared his throat. Neveah glanced up to find their math teacher standing in front of them with his hand held out. Begrudgingly, they handed him their wool and crochet needle.

'Tell me, James, how often does this need to happen before you learn?'

They shrugged. 'I guess if I'm not learning, you can't be a good teacher.'

'I don't think that's the issue here,' he said.

To Neveah's surprise, he turned away. They couldn't help but celebrate a little. Obviously, he'd realised his weekly speech was futile.

Then, he said those dreaded four words, 'Regarding last lesson's test...'

He milled around his desk until he'd produced that horrible, nightmarish pile. He paged through a little until he found it. Then, with a solemn expression, he returned to Neveah's desk. 'I trust you already know what it'll say.'

'Look, a narrow pass is still a pass?' they hopefully responded.

'And how are you meant to pass if you spend my lessons crocheting scarves?'

'It's not like I'm here by choice, sir. I'm no mathematician and don't want to be. So, as long as I can scrape through the exam, as I always have, it shouldn't matter if I do something else in the lesson,' they reasoned with him. Unfortunately, reasoning with Mr. Zupan wasn't exactly possible.

'If you can't pass this, you'll be lost on the exam,' Mr. Zupan told her. He handed them the test, which was not a pretty sight. 'I'm telling you, James, if you get your act together now, you might just have a chance. But wait much longer, and you're going to have wasted a year.'

'Right,' they muttered under their breath as he left to distribute the other tests.

Grimacing, they gathered their stuff and pushed it into their bag. They took one last glance at the test before screwing it up. On their way out of the classroom, they threw it into the bin, though if they could have, they would have burned it.