Finding Family

Chapter 6

I woke up extra early the next morning so I wouldn't miss my meeting. I bought a muffin and a hot chocolate and sat on a bench in one of the courtyards. I'd only been at St. John's for a few days, but I already really enjoyed it. Rory was a great roommate and friend. We got along really well, and the best part was, we never asked each other what's wrong when the other was upset, we just it let go. She and I had become really good friends with Mouth. He was super funny and cool. The three of us studied together, and ate with my brother's friends. I checked with him to make sure that that didn't bother him, but he said he liked having me around. It was nice to be able to spend so much time together. We'd been waiting our whole lives for our parents to care enough about us to make us a family, but we'd found our own kind of family. Everything worked, the whole dynamic, it had a good balance, but if one of us changed something, it could all fall apart.

"Amy, come on in." Mr. Daniels interrupted my thoughts. I took a deep breathe and followed him into his office. "You can take a seat. I wanted to apologize for the way that I talked to you yesterday. I didn't mean to come off so harsh, I just hate when I see students who don't try. I've seen your brothers grades, he's a genius. Siblings are rarely very apart in intelligence. I don't understand why you'd waste that."

"You've taught me for one day, and you've already turned into every other adult in my life. Why can't you be more like Nate? Nate can do it why can't you? Nate's amazing at everything and I suck, I get it. Don't we have to get to class?"

"Amy, I get that having an older brother that's seemingly perfect can be hard, but that's no excuse to stop trying altogether."

"No you don't get it, because if you got it then you wouldn't say that."

"Then help me understand." Mr. Daniels had this look of determination on his face, like he might actually listen to what I had to say.

"I do try. I spent all of last year reading every school assignment ten times trying to understand it. I'd stay up all night, on middle school homework. I spent the summer working with Nate. We'd read books together and discuss. It was so helpful, I felt like I could finally understand books, and they were kind of fun. Then we tried to write a practice paper on the books we'd read. Suddenly all our progress slipped away. He got so frustrated with me we got in a huge fight. When we made up we decided it'd be best if we stopped studying together. I tried on my own but it didn't work. I just couldn't get it, and I couldn't get that test you gave us yesterday. I'm trying I swear, I just don't know what else to do."

Mr. Daniels looked so guilty I thought he might cry. "How about you continue coming here before class every day? We'll have our own tutoring session, totally relaxed, just to keep you at the pace of the class."

I was so grateful I almost hugged Mr. Daniels, which I'm glad I didn't because that would have been so awkward. It was nice though, having a teacher that wanted to help me, instead of just yelling at me.