Wait For Your Love

Chapter 5- Zak??

Chapter 5- Zak??

I was sitting in math class next to Zain and Allen showing them my math test results snarkily.

"Hey Allen look at my test scores, we got the same ones that's crazy." I say with a goofy grin.

"You literally cheated off me, I saw you." Allen said, matter-of-factly.

"Nah man you cheated off of me that's wild" I say in fake denial.

Allen rolls his eyes and looks at Zain who is holding his test paper with a 45. He failed. But he didn't look too upset, maybe it was because he was stuffing his face with a Twinkie.

"Hey fatass, share with us" I say, grabbing the Twinkie from Zain.

"MMMM" Zain says, unable to produce comprehensible sounds due to the pastry currently occupying his mouth. But anybody with a brain could tell he was not happy of being robbed of his precious 7th twinkie of the day. It was 9am on a Monday.

Allen looked at us, his 2 mulish friends and sighed. The thought "I need new friends" could be read off of his face like a well written cry for help.

Me and Zain are bantering until I hear a high pitched yell of triumph resounding from the other side of the classroom.

"Hah! Take that Zak!" A short girl with dough eyes yells at me, thrusting a paper with a 94 in my direction. Oh yeah, the bet I made with Maisa. Oh this was gonna be gold.

I look down at my paper slowly, making sure that it's long enough to provoke irritation from Maisa. I smirk and hold up my paper too, seeing her gaze fall on the blue 95 on my test paper and watching her smile fall. Golden.

Her smile falters and she says bitterly. "Just wait until science, you're cooked. Sr. Anna hates your guts."

She wasn't wrong. I know I wreak havoc in her classroom and waste half of the time goofing off with Zain. But I have been barely scraping it thanks to my best buddy Allen.

I turn my head back to Maisa's direction to gloat a little longer and relish in her bitterness until I see her bickering with Mia, my rival of sorts. The person who Maisa was betting on. Mia's face was burning a bright scarlet on her usually pale face, a refreshing contrast to her cold, elegant demeanor. I couldn't catch what she was saying due to the usual deafening din of the math classroom and Sr. Aliyah pleading with the class to let her teach.

I chew on the stolen Twinkie and put my math test in my bag, whistling a goofy tune.

~

Another 20 minutes of noise ensues and the boys and I shuffle into Sr. Anna's classroom. Kids are whispering anxiously to each other, asking each other how they think they did on the science test. Heh, losers. Imagine not having a living Chat GPT as your side character.

I sit at my seat and prop my legs up on some kids' chair and put my hands behind my head, waiting for my test with a 100% and a scholarship to Harvard attached via email.

Sr. Anna passes out the tests and looks incredibly smug as she hands me mine and before I look at it I go "Sister, aren't you proud of me?" I look down at my paper and my world shatters, along with my grin.

"Yeah Zak, super proud." Sr. Anna taunts.

On the paper is a big red 0 and a photograph of me resting my head on Allen's shoulder, clearly cheating. And a sticky note saying "see me after class' ' in Sr. Anna's messy handwriting.

And if things couldn't get worse, I hear the same irritating squeaky voice in my ear going "Hah! Told you, you're cooked once we walk into Sr. Anna's class!" She clutches her miniscule sides and Mia's paper, which reads 98%, with laughter.

I can't come up with a solid comeback so I go with a classic. "Shut up Maisa, you're just as tall as this paper." Those always work.

She rolls her eyes, "Real original, Zak. At least this short girls' best friend doesn't have to cheat to get a passing grade." she pauses to cackle like the witch she is "And you still didn't pass!"

I didn't think Mia was interested in the bet, but when I looked over at her, she wore a small smile of pride and red cheeks that matched it. My irritation dissipated, and before I had a chance to process why it had, I'm distracted by Sr. Anna smiling in the corner of my eye, getting ready to start the day's lesson.