Grades come out today. There are multiple reasons I’m freaking out.
I haven’t hung out with Matthew in weeks. I‘m getting sick of having lunch dates. He’s getting increasingly more frustrated than even I am. He acts like it’s my fault; on days when it’s really bad all we do is fight. Then he’ll bring me stupid flowers the next day.
Steve, now that he basically hates me again, keeps it strictly professional. He helps me with my work indifferently and leaves when we’re done. There’s no more TV, no more cookies, and definitely no more flirting. At least my grades have gone way up.
I walk into my house, sit down at the table across from my mother, and wait impatiently for her to break the silence. Her face is passive and I can’t read her expression.
“Well?” I ask. She breaks out into a grin, and laughing, slides the report card across the table to me.
A, A, A, A, A…all I see are A’s. I could kiss this piece of paper.
“Congratulations, sweetie,” my mother says, sliding a $20 bill across the table. “Go out and celebrate, preferably with a girl.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I’m out the door, texting Megan that I’m going to stop over and help her babysit. I may even sleepover, seeing as it’s a Friday night.
I drive the fast and the furious style because I’m so excited to just have a girl’s night and finally meet these siblings Megan is always talking about. I pull up at her apartment in record timing and hurry up to ring the buzzer.
She lets me in and I walk up the stairs to her second floor apartment. The door is unlocked and I step inside, not knowing what to expect. Meg definitely doesn’t have a lot of money. With a single mom and two younger siblings, I can see that it hasn’t been easy growing up.
She gives me a quick tour; I’m surprised to find her lack of money doesn’t bother me. She’s still Megan. It’s not like I’m that shallow. There are two bedrooms because the boys share one and Meg sleeps with her mom most nights. When she doesn’t feel like it she sleeps on the couch.
The kitchenette is tiny, but Meg says she does most of the cooking because her mom leaves for work around dinner time and usually doesn’t have time to make anything. Today she had a shift at the diner that she pulls day shifts at so she’s only going to be stopping by to grab her things before she heads to the club.
Megan’s little brothers Jake and Tyler are really cute. They’re all blonde hair and stick thin little energetic monsters. They have the same father but Megan has a different one. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me a few things about Meg’s mother. I think she even suspects the truth but won’t admit it.
From what I gather, her mom likes to sleep around because she’s unsatisfied with her life. She hasn’t found the man that she really loves, or lost him, and she may or may not be a stripper.
Of course, I’m not judging her, just making some observations. As the boys work on their homework Meg and I occupy ourselves with some TV. I actually end up doing some of my own homework that I brought as well. It feels good to be productive.
I can’t imagine how little work I’d done previously to pull such shitty grades. It was so easy to pull them up when I just did my homework. I had Steve to thank for that. I found myself wanting to talk to Megan about Matt and Steve’s weird behavior, but I didn’t know if I should because she was so much younger.
It was weird that I was hanging out and this close to a freshman anyways. But what the hell? Maybe I should just get her opinion. I didn’t have to take her advice seriously. I put off asking for a while.
