Every Universe

‣ Maroon Beanie

a short story ‣ Maroon Beanie

length ‣ 3998 words, 8 pages

notes ‣ until I am done writing my current novel, I am going to aim for two Every Universe updates a month, and the first one this month happens to be a short story featuring some characters I hold very dear in my heart (and will hopefully write a novel about someday). enjoy!

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KATHRYN MYERS HAD never gotten below a seventy-five in her entire life. She hardly even struggled with classes. For the most part, Kathryn enjoyed studying, so doing well in school was a fringe benefit, and although she didn't particularly enjoy a few history classes, two math classes, and one science class, she still passed with high B's, mostly low A's.

Never had she even received a grade below seventy-five. Never had she failed.

So receiving a failing grade for an AP Calculus BC test — for a test she had studied long and hard for, and felt confident about when she took it — was devastating.

With a sickening feeling in her stomach, she walked toward the cafeteria, her feet dragging behind her. She didn't want to go to lunch and pretend everything was okay, especially since she just failed her first test ever, but she also didn't want to make a big deal about it. She knew she was going to survive this hurdle, but it just didn't feel like it at the moment.

They weren't allowed to take the tests out of the classroom, but the 56, scribbled and circled in red ink from a cheap Bic ballpoint pen her teacher had bought on sale, seemed imprinted on her eyelids. The idea that she had gotten an F, an actual, failing F on something, for the first time made her feel scared, ashamed, to have failed on a test she did in her favorite pencil during a two mod calculus class. She hadn't even failed precalculus, passing that class with flat nineties both semesters, and she had to do Khan Academy lessons daily to actually understand what was going on in that class.

Pulling on the frayed ends of her sweater's sleeves, she took a deep breath and made a mental list of things to do to raise her grade. After all, to take AP Physics C, to prove to the world she was not a failure, she had to pass calculus. She had to study more. Make mind maps. Revise. Rewrite notes. Do more Khan Academy lessons online.

There was no such thing as failure. This test was a threshold, but she would cross it and enter the new world. She could resurrect and return with the elixir. That was what she did.

About to make a study plan, her thoughts were interrupted by a voice nearby suggesting, "Let's go to My Other Kitchen." Kathryn blinked and only then noticed, down the hall, a group of male teenagers leaning against the wall, looking like they should be smoking a joint. The boy in plaid and khakis, who had suggested the trip of My Other Kitchen, looked over at Via, who was wearing a t-shirt from the Belmont High School spirit shop and using the wall to finish up a homework assignment — it looked like algebra II, but it could've as easily been chemistry — and Via just made a sound of acknowledgement, muttering a quiet "sure, sure," not meaning his words, but also not not meaning his words. Another boy, in a maroon beanie, was reading The Things They Carried with intense focus, not even looking up at the suggestion, and not even looking up when everyone else piped in an agreement about going to My Other Kitchen after school.

Kathryn would've paid them no mind, but the problem is, a year ago, they would've agreed wholeheartedly, gone to My Other Kitchen, and have a blast. A year ago, they would've noticed Kathryn's presence and invite her to go with them. A year ago, the popular clique still had meaning, because he had still been alive, and he had trusted them with all his heart. Then, everything changed when he trusted her, and not them.