The Tough Road

Chapter 20: Wise Ashley

I finished my breakfast before I took my bag and went to school. Dad as usual gave me a ride and advised me to keep it low today and not to burn the school. As if that was what I always did. Well, I might have done something in the past, but we don’t need to count them.

“Save me god, today from the math test!”
“Why do you think he will save any of us from it?” I heard an unfamiliar voice.
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“And, who are you supposed to be mister eavesdropping on me?” I taunted him with my annoyed voice.
“You’ll see soon, Ashley.” He had an amusing smile on his face.

Okay! He was getting on my nerves now!
“How do you know my name?”
“I hear things.”
“And, I’m good at kicking things!” I was not in the mood for fights, but he was provoking me on my period.

“I’m Ben.”
“So what?” I rolled my eyes.
“You’ll hear it a lot, Ashley.”
“Well, I don’t give a…”

As I wanted to give a good one, a hand on my mouth stopped me. I looked around and saw my one and only best friend, Mark. I shoved him gently aside, then looked at the Ben guy with narrowed eyes.

“Look! I don’t care who you are, or what you want. You better not mess with me pretty boy! I’m not always this generous!” I threatened him.
“Excuse my friend, please. She’s a bit on the left side today.” Mark tried to sooth the tension.
“ME? No!” I slapped his shoulder.

Mark tried to drag me out of the scene with a stupid smile on his face while I gave the Ben boy death glares, and he was still looking at me with a smirk on his face!

When Mark was satisfied that we had been far enough, he opened his mouth to talk; but, this time I shut his mouth with my hand.

“You should’ve allowed me to kick his as*!”
“And get you suspended on the day of your gym class? And get yourself killed by that coach of yours?”
“Umm… Well, you have a reason.” I scratched my head.
“Let’s go to the class before that stupid math teacher comes! He isn’t the kind type.”
“You talk as if all of them were!”

We continued our way to the class by arguing about the simplest things until we reached the class. We both sat down next to each other and waited for Mr. I know everything about math. While Mark was writing some cheating papers, I was thinking about the emerging pain under my stomach.

“Don’t you wanna do something before she comes? Everyone is working on it.” Mark said as a matter of factly while he was busy with writing.
“Tsk. I don’t need it.” I said calmly.
“WHAT?” Mark was surprised.

He put his on my forehead to check my temperature.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah?” I tossed his hand around.
“Who are you and what have you done with my bestie?”
“Stop messing around dummy! I’m just prepared. That’s all.”

“You're prepared, Ashley?” One of my classmates asked.
“Yeah? What’s with that?” I was starting to get annoyed that people thought I can’t be prepared.
“Nothing, just I’m surprised that our class representative is prepared. You should help us girl, you know?” This time Izy talked.

Deciding that it would be fun to mess with them I smirked and looked back.
“But, are you guys that smart to understand?” I widened my smirk.

Everyone started to mess around and make loud noises in opposition to what I said, and yours truly looked at them with silence, just enjoying the show. This went on until our so called math teacher came inside, then everyone got silent in a sec. I laughed in my head at them. They were cowards.

Nevertheless, Mr. Math gave us the exam’s paper, and we started. Not even a minute had passed, and I could feel Mark’s kick to my chair.

“What?” I whispered while the teacher went to the end of the class.
“Number 7” He whispered back.
I looked at my own answer. I wasn’t sure of it, but he himself asked for it.
“B” I answered him.

Finally, after an hour and a half we were finished. Quickly after that, the bell rang and we came out of the class. Mark and I were walking silently while each of us were thinking of our own problems. The pain was starting to kill me.

“Was that answer of yours correct?” Mark asked hopefully.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure about that either.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“What? I thought you said you’d been studying.”
“Yes, that’s what I exactly said.”
“Then…”
“Look, it’s over and crying over it won’t do you any good. By the way…” With the last words of mine he looked at me curiously.
“What is it?”
“Why are you concerned with your grades? Have you been stuck with something like my coach too?”  It was weird to see him worried about his grades.

“Well, it’s my brother.” His voice was bellow whispering.
“Your brother?”
“Yeah… He and I were fighting over something, and he said that if I were able to get an A or a B, he would consider me smart!”
“Why should that bother you?”
“Well, I don’t wanna let my family think that I’m not caring about myself, or that I don’t have any plans for my life.” By the end of his words he had some tears in his eyes.
“Hey… not everyone should be able to make you sad like this. It’s important to use your own will to make your own way. You can’t always get sad  when you hear something like this, else you’re not gonna make it at the end of the day.”

After my long inspirational speech, Mark looked at me as if he had seen an alien.
“What?”
“Who taught you that?” He looked at me with his big eyes.
“You can thank my coach later on if you want.”
“No thanks! I prefer not to! He has changed you in so many aspects! I’m afraid that the same thing will happen to me.” He had a bit of fear in his tone.
“Like what changes, exactly?” I was curious as well to know how Coach has changed me.

“Well…” His eyes sparkled. “You curse less! Like I haven’t heard fu*k out of your mouth for…” He brought his fingers up to count. “ three weeks!”
“Oh Mark! You have no idea!”
“And and and… he made you like this!”
“Like what?” I looked at him as if he had gone mad.
“Like… wise!”

I laughed loudly as he finished his sentence.
“What are you talking about? Me? Wise?”
“Yeah! Like, a few minutes ago you were giving me a lecture about life!” He argued back.
“Okay! Calm down.” I surrendered myself to him to let him have his fun.
When the bell rang, we went to our class.

Third p.o.v
“Yes, she was just like you said.”
“Is she doing fine?”
“Yeah Coach. She seems wise enough now to train her as planned.”
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