Tamed By Her Kindness [Completed]

Chapter Five

Days passed, but it felt like years. If only.

I was sitting in our Economics class, I was having none of it, nothing. Mr. Lawrence continued in the front of the class with his lesson, something about monetary flow and the economic cycle or something. I looked around the classroom and spotted Joe from rugby team picking his nose and then he stuck whatever he found in there underneath his desk. Gross Joe. I continued looking around the class, just for the sake of looking, so far it hasn't hurt me just to look. So far, Joe was the only thing or person interesting, everyone else was either fixated on Mr. Lawrence, or staring into their books. After fifteen minutes, the bell rang, and I was the first one up. As I walked past Mr. Lawrence standing by the white board with a marker in his hands, he stopped me and told me to wait behind.

"Mr. Lawrence?" I asked tugging at my school bag's straps. 

"How are you doing?" He asked and I sighed. In the past four months that question has basically become as redundant as wall paper. 

"I'm good Mr. Lawrence, always have been, how about you?" "I'm all right. Listen, the reason why I want to speak to you is because of your marks Kieran." 

"What about it, sir?" 

"It's your last year on school and the June exams are almost around the corner, and your March marks were horrific if I can recall. Now I know you've had a stressful year as do all matriculants, but I suppose yours was exceptionally stressful. So what I'm saying is, I offer extra classes on a Saturday if you're interested, but only for Economics, I think Miss Davis gives extra math's classes as well. No pressure, just that you're welcome to attend, it will only be for your benefit at the end of the day." 

"I'll think about it." 

"Get back to me, okay?" 

"Will do sir." I turned on my heels and walked out of his classroom. My marks weren't that bad last semester, I only had a code 1 for Computer Applications Technology and two code 3's, one for History and the other Afrikaans. The rest were all 4's, I bet on my life that there was a student who did far worse than me.

At my next class, I found out that apparently nobody did worse than me, I was at the bottom of the food chain or in the case the whole grade 12. I looked at the list my English teacher puts up every term, just to see how our are academics are looking. Not that I was the most smartest person of our high school, but I was normally not below any number after 40. And now I was 116th of all the grade 12's. I can't wait to break this great news to good old dad. If mom was here, I knew she would've told me not to worry and that everything will work out for the best, but that was normally after an hour of scolding. 

~

The first time I introduced Emma to my mother as my girlfriend was the most awkward day ever. Yes, my parents knew her parents and they've seen Emma grow up in front of them, but it was still a shock to my mother when she found out, or when Emma actually went and called her mom. My dad sat in his big brown chair and said, "Didn't I tell you this would happen? It was pretty obvious." And he continued staring at the television screen. "Well I certainly didn't. No offence to you Emma, but as a mother, this is awfully shocking to me. He's my baby boy," She squeezed my cheeks and I backed away. "And I don't want anything to happen to him."  "Mom." I whined. "Girls are very dangerous Kieran, I told you that a million times, but do you ever listen? No! What if she leaves you hanging, and then what?" 

"I fear that everyday." My father said softly, still watching the screen and Emma and I laughed with each other. My mom turned and gnarled at my father. "This is rather serious, switch off that television." She told dad, and he clicked to another channel instead of turning it off. This fuelled up my mother and  instead of screaming at us, she started screaming at him. All the while she was screaming at him, Emma and I stood watching, Emma with a half opened mouth, she probably thought; 'what the hell is happening?' , and my dad looked at me and showed me thumbs up. I knew what he meant by that and I felt glad. Taking Emma by her hand, we silently snuck out of the house and took a walk down by the beach.

"Wow, I never saw your mom like that before." She laughed, still half shocked. "You'll get used to it." I told her and placed my arm around her neck and we continued walking down the beach and returned before the sunset.

~

"Dad, I'm home." I said coming in through the front door. I went straight to the kitchen and found him there, with a wooden spoon in his hand, stirring the pot.

"What are you making?" 

"Just a brown stew." He said. "Smells nice." I said. 

"How was school?" He asked. 

"It was okay..." 

"Good, I went for an interview today." 

"Really? That's good news, how did it go?" "I think it went well." He said without looking at me, and his tone was still the same as from the beginning of the conversation. "When do you start?" I asked. "You know it doesn't work like that. They told me they'd stay in touch, so obviously I won't be getting that job." "They're stupid if they won't take you on dad." " No, I won't fit in there."

Dad does have a job, it's just they've recently lost a lot of money, so now to make up those losses, some of the workers, don't work full weeks anymore. So, in the meantime, he's looking for some  place else. So far, he's only went for four interviews and none of them, to him, looks promising. He's in accounts, so it's a little difficult for him to just go anywhere, he's been an accountant for almost twenty years and he only worked at one company. I thought now was a good time to mention my poor position.

I swallowed. "Dad?" "Yes?" He replied turning around to face me. "Remember my report?" "It wasn't that long ago. What is it?" "I'm at the bottom of the grade twelve." I breathed. "That's to be expectant." He said, and turned back to stirring his pot. "What?" "You're mother told me you weren't studying and I just said you will get to your books. I should've listened when she told me to talk to you." He took the spoon out of the pot and wiped it with a dish towel and walked out of the kitchen.

Thanks for the support dad, I thought.