Staring at the crinkled and (poorly) stapled pieces of paper in disbelief, Quinn eventually let go of them and let the papers fall onto the desk that she was currently sat on. She couldn't bare to look at that... that disgusting letter written on top of the first page. That letter was written in a thick, red marker pen and it was circled; just like everybody else's. Except if a student had an A, Professor Styles would place a smiley face next to the circled letter.
But for Quinn, she was infuriated with herself and Professor Styles. Mainly Professor Styles though, because he had given her a C for this assignment. Yes. Quinn may have stayed up until 3 A.M writing this the night before it was due, nonetheless it didn't mean that her brilliant, hard work and dedication towards this essay faltered for the worse. In fact, Quinn thought that this was her best one yet. Clearly not. And she wanted to know why, because Quinn certainly disagreed with the Professor's marking.
"Now, I'd just like to say how great most of your assignments were. Most were very thorough yet interesting." the professor pauses to search for someone, his eyes passing Quinn's swiftly before meeting another pair, "I especially loved Kaden's outtake on Lady Macbeth stripping her femininity in Act 1, Scene 5. Well done, again." Professor Styles' voice spoke loudly within the room, he nodded his head towards Kaden who grinned. Quinn guessed that he got the big A that she was hoping for. Show off.
"Make sure to read through Act 3, Scene 4 in preparation for tomorrows discussion!" he exclaims and grins at all of us, "you're dismissed." he waves us off, before turning around and writing a couple of things down on the interactive smart board in front of him. As people started to leave the room, Kaden made his way over to Professor Styles and began conversing whereas Quinn sat (still) dumbfounded by her grade.
How could he give her a C? At least she passed, but still, she thought that this was an A worthy essay. She couldn't help but think how her assignment grade deserved better. Okay... so there might be a few spelling and grammatical mistakes, yet that shouldn't really count. Plus, it wasn't exactly her fault that her spell/grammar check wasn't working properly on her laptop. Also, it wasn't her fault that she did the assignment so late at night – she had previously been sick for a few days beforehand and was only told about the dumb essay the day before it was due. So technically, he should've given her the benefit of the doubt.
She knew she wrote a good damn piece and she knew it deserved a better grade than just a plain old C. You might be thinking: 'get over it, at least you passed'. And yes, deep down she'd agree with you. But being raised with strict, pretentious parents didn't help calm her anxiety about failure. If she didn't keep up her straight A's at this amazing boarding school, her parents were going to make her come back home, even if it was her last year before heading off to university. And trust me, she didn't want that. Not right now.
She loved being here, as she was away from their constant nagging. Also, being at this school would be really useful to get into the university she's always been dreaming of. So she needed to have spectacular grades, or else it's goodbye awesome university and back to shittiness. And to top it all off, struggling with 2 jobs (a café = weekends and a supermarket = weekday evenings) as well as school, was becoming more and more difficult to handle. But she's trying her best and managing to control herself. She'll get there soon. Hopefully.
Standing up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and snatching the papers off her desk, she made her way over to Kaden and Professor Styles; who were still talking about something. Waiting patiently until they finished, Kaden nodded his head at Quinn before exiting the room. Professor Styles ignores her presence and turns around, stuffing random papers from his desk, into his briefcase.
