BAD OMENS ✬ luke hemmings

5.0 | mock week

The excruciating pain of the week filled with mock exams is finally over for Aria. However, she can't say the same for most of her friends. Still, the weight on her shoulders had lifted– and lord, had it been painfully heavy over four days.

The girl fully believes – or believed now that exams are over – whoever planned the schedule had a vendetta against her.

Monday was packed with a two-hour Math slot, which she could have studied harder for once she laid eyes on the following second paper and realized she couldn't answer more than five subsections of questions, leaving most of the test paper blank. 

She had less than an hour to prepare – and review – the content for her Geography paper two, not that she had much to stress about, considering the core topics are the most straightforward concepts to grasp: population change, global climate, and resource consumption.

Then, there was the hellscape of Tuesday that harboured both History and Biology. The latter is a subject she also put little effort into studying when the former had more substance and importance. At least the remainder of the classes – English and Spanish – were separated, allowing her to arrive at school late or leave early in today's case.

Whoever thought that arrangement would be acceptable deserves to see her poor grades, which will undoubtedly be from Math and Biology. Obviously, she will prioritize her higher-level classes; they're the ones that matter at the end of it all– also the ones she's relatively better at.

Then again, she can't say the same for her friends, who have one or two more exams left. Unlike Sade, Michael, Jonah, and even Luke, she is done for the day. Michael hadn't bothered to attend school because his schedule was much less intense than hers– though she'll be sure to rub it in his face when he takes the bus tomorrow morning for his French mock while she sleeps in.

She walks out of the exam hall – the cold, depressing gym that has equally drab desks scattering it – with a fucking smile, especially as she overhears the very few people behind her complaining about how they have to sit in for their Chemistry tests next. 

Now that content should be finished for all the classes since they've just been tested on it, and all other assignments like the overdue internal assessments are wrapping up, the senior class will see a rise in absences.

There is nothing left for them to do except revise. Even now, Aria's math class consists of three students as most of her peers – including herself – go to the library or senior lounge to hang out with their friends. Not that their teacher ever stops them either; he's given up.

Mid-February and they've got no reason to stay– aside from the completion of IA's, and in the case of Chemistry and Psychics students, more content they haven't covered. Three more big events will come in the following months before the class goes on leave to prepare for exams and their eventual graduation: the senior campout, prom, and then the garden party.

Aria will not include the goodbye assembly in the second week of April in that list of events; she doesn't care about that.

Luke catches up to the girl, casting a checking glance behind his back to ensure the rest of the people who filed out of the exam hall are gone – or too preoccupied to notice the two of them together. He comes up next to her, nudging his arm into her shoulder as they fall into step.

Thankfully, Michael isn't there to trail the girl like an overbearing parasite who cannot bear to be separated from his host, and Sade and Jonah are too busy lingering in the senior lounge far away from this scene. 

The blond hadn't found the time, or been able, to speak to – or even look at – Aria these past few days, and he preferred talking to the girl in person rather than singular threads of texts that they've had to resort to.