𝐊𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐉𝐀𝐇'𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 / 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐈𝐄 𝐁

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟏: 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄.

"I'm fucking stupid, I don't understand none of this," Khadijah bit her lip, staring at her math assignment in pure agony.

Ever since her last escapade, she'd eased off on the drinking and smoking. She was pretty proud of herself. She hadn't gone to a party in almost two weeks. Slowly but surely, she forced herself to go to school—honestly, just to give her something to do while her mother found work at a local hair salon as a receptionist. It was the first job she'd held in years after spending time as a stay-at-home mom. Khadijah was happy for her, except she just felt like the world's biggest fuck-up right now.

"You missed a lotta lessons, just try and work through at least the first page, ma," Arion told her, laying flat on his back on the edge of the bed, he scrolled through his phone with one hand, the other resting inside his pants.

"I've been sitting here for two hours," Khadijah whined, slamming her pencil down against her desk in frustration. Her teacher's gave her small assignments for her to catch-up, but with the amount of school she'd missed this semester, she was on the track of failing all her classes and landing in summer school. The thought of failing her classes upset her, but another part of her didn't care all too much—school was the furthest thing from her mind and she was itching for a blunt. That day had been particularly hard—the hardest day so far. She couldn't bare to leave her room, and Arion had been practically glued to her side all day to comfort her. "This shit feels so hopeless." She whispered. 

"Don't say that," Arion said gently, sitting up on her bed. He tossed his phone onto the side of the bed with a sigh. "C'mere." He called to her, but Khadijah refused to move, her eyes were glued to the mountains of papers lining her desk and her textbooks that proved to be of no use to her. All she'd wanted to do was wallow in her sorrow and be pitiful. The numbers didn't make sense, and the new theories they were learning in her social sciences classes didn't align with her. If she was looking at this a few months ago, things would click for her almost instantly, and she wouldn't be stuck working on the same assignment for hours. It was a rude wake-up call, and it'd shown her just how much she'd fallen from grace.

She hated feeling like she was dumb.

All her good grades on tests and assignments were things she'd worked hard for—studied hard for, and now everything went downhill and her efforts amounted to nothing anyways.

Her high nineties were fifties and sixties now—summer school was inevitable.

"Come 'ere, Khadijah, don't make me have to get up and go get you."

With her head hung low, Khadijah reluctantly pushed herself off of her desk chair, the old thing squeaking as she moved. She padded towards him quietly, tugging her zip-up sweater higher on her shoulders. He stared up at her as she approached him, and she didn't know why she began tearing up as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. He pressed his chin against her stomach, looking at her pathetic face that seemed to always be marred with tears. Khadijah wanted to hide—she wanted to run away, but she knew Arion would never let her.