Free Me (bxb)

Part 14

Griffin's six weeks tests went about as well as he imagined they would. He failed six out of eight of them, and the two that he did pass it was by sheer luck. He'd been sitting in his English classroom, listening to Mr. Bratton drone on about Shakespearean literature when the intercom overhead clicked on and he was called to the counselor's office.

"Ooh, how bad did you fail, Hoover?" Tommy Halperin calls from somewhere up in the front, and Griffin wants to flip him off but Mr. Bratton is following him closely with his beady little eyes. He walks the short distance to his counselor's office, and when he knocks on the door he's immediately called inside.

"I'm sure that you know what this is about, Mr. Hoover," Mrs. Martinez says to him when he sits down in front of her desk. He doesn't give her a verbal reply, but she doesn't seem to need it because she continues talking. "You've failed six of your six weeks tests and passed the other two, just barely. Mr. Hoover, I have to wonder if you're even putting in any effort here. Is there anything going on that is affecting your ability to study or concentrate?"

"No," Griffin lies, and really, he's gotten good enough at lying to himself so being able to look into this lady's eyes and lie isn't that much of a difficult task. "Nothing. I'm just- I don't understand anything."

Mrs. Martinez sighs heavily and pushes a small packet towards him across the desk. "Well, if there isn't anything going on at home or with you there isn't much I can say in your defense. Do you understand that?"

"Yeah," he says quietly with a shrug, staring down at the packet she's pushing to him. It's got a note to his dad at the top, and his blood is going cold. His dad is going to kill him. "But. It's not like I'm slacking; I just don't understand what is being taught. Why do I have to show this to my dad at all?"

"Because, Mr. Hoover, you're going to have to start attending both Saturday school and summer school. With the grades you've been making for the past year there isn't much we can do for you at this point. And even if you do start making A's on every one of your assignments and tests you would still fail for this year. We need your father to understand what it is that's going on."

Griffin takes a deep breath and nods. There was no walking out of it this time, there was no amount of lies that could save him, either. "Okay. I'll get him to sign it."

"Thank you. I know this is difficult, but we just want you to excel and get to wherever it is you want to go in life."

Griffin almost wants to scoff, but he holds it back and he just takes the packet from the counselor. Once he has it tucked away in a folder in his backpack, Mrs. Martinez dismisses him and lets him go back to his class. Griffin goes through the rest of the day in a kind of fog, constantly in a panic over what his dad was going to say about his grades. The day goes by fast, and Griffin is home before he even realizes what is happening.

He desperately just wants to forge his dad's signature and bring the packet back to Mrs. Martinez and have her believe that his dad really saw it, but there was no way he could disguise going to Saturday school as well as summer school. Even if he didn't show his dad this packet now, he would find out one way or another, and if it happened later the fallout would be so much worse.

"Griffin," his dad said suddenly, jarring Lukas out of his endless spin of thoughts. "Why are you just standing there? Come inside."

"Dad, I need you to sign something. It's for school."

"You going on another field trip? I thought once you got to eighth grade you were done with that."

"No, it's. It's about my grades."

Bo pauses with frying the steaks on the stove, and looks at Griffin over his shoulder. He doesn't say anything, and that just makes anxiety stir up in his gut. Griffin isn't sure what else to say, but his dad is obviously waiting for him to elaborate. "I- my tests didn't go so good. They're signing me up for Saturday and summer school."

"You're failing?" Tim asks him sharply, turning off the stove and taking steps closer to Griffin. "How can you be failing? You told me that you were doing fine in all your classes."

"I've been distracted lately."

"By what? Your bike? Girls? Friends? Lukas, what's going on with you? You used to never let your grades slip; you know how important they are for sponsorships. Image is everything in motocross and failing grades is not helping you in the slightest."

"I know I just- practicing is important, too. I can't show up to a race without knowing what I'm doing," Griffin argues, even though he knows that grades and image are just as important. But the schoolwork was getting more difficult and some of what they were teaching just didn't seem important to him. Besides, he'd had a lot of other stuff on his mind, but when he could hardly admit it to himself how could he admit it to his dad who would never understand?

"Well, until you pull those grades up you can forget about practicing everyday-"

"What? Dad, that isn't fair!"

"Do not interrupt me again, Griffin, or I'll take that damn bike away from you altogether."

Griffin falls silent, but he diverts his eyes away from his father and glares down at his shoes, his hands balled into fists. He wasn't just neglecting his schoolwork because he felt like it. He didn't understand most of the material and, really, motocross and trying to not think about how good Conal looks in everything he wears are a little more important to him right now. 

"I'm going to be increasing your chores around the farm, but most importantly, you are going to be worrying about your grades. I'm going to make an appointment with your counselor and make sure that you get whatever tutoring you need and have them keep me updated with your grades. This is not an insignificant problem, Griffin. This is your future, so maybe you should start worrying about it a little more. Leave whatever it is I need to sign on the table and then go clean out the chicken coop. As soon as you're done with that start on your homework." His dad paused, looked up into Griffin's eyes with furrowed brows and a deep frown. "I'm very disappointed in you, Griffin."

Griffin watched his dad leave the kitchen, probably on his way to make that appointment with Mrs. Martinez. He pulled out the packet and left it on the table like instructed before making his way out towards the chicken coop. He knew that his dad wasn't out of line with what he said, or overreacting, but Griffin still wanted to find a reason to be mad at him. He decided to be mad at the fact that if his dad cared about him a little more then maybe he would have realized there was something wrong with him, though he knew deep inside that, that wasn't fair to think. It wasn't like he gave his dad much of a chance to know what is going on in his mind or life outside of home.

While Griffin is cleaning out the chicken coop, with a fresh scratch on his right forearm because of an angry hen, he wonders how his mom might have reacted. He wonders that if she was still alive, if she would be disappointed in him, too. Not just because of his grades, but because of everything he seemed to be becoming.