Battered, With Love

Chapter 3 -- Uncertainty

  Hey everyone! New chapter tiiiime (starts dancing like an idiot)

"I used to curse, once upon a time. I don't any more. What's the point of it anyway? Why use the voice God gave you to say things you end up having to censor anyway?" -- Ash

           I knew I would love English class the minute I saw it. For the left wall of the classroom, it’s a floor-to-ceiling window. We’re on the second floor. See what I mean? A double win. An instant love. A melting heart. You get the idea.

            The teacher, Mrs. Winthrop, asks me for my name. “Eiliyah Suleiman.” I respond. She looks down at her roll call.

            “Seat nineteen.” She responds. We smile at each other and I turn around, looking for a desk with a 19 on it. My heart leaps when I see it’s by the window. Like, directly by it. My seat is on the far left.

            I can’t help but grin when I sit down. Oh heck yeah, I’m going to have a great time in this class. When I turn to admire the view from the window, the first thing I see is bright blue, like a small child has generously painted the sky with paint. Delicate green leaves firmly attach themselves to thick brown branches, curving and bending carelessly, gracefully until they form the shape of a tree.

            A plane zips through the sky, small enough to be held in my hand. Where are those passengers going? London? India? Milan? The Bahamas? Are some of them going to visit family? To celebrate a birth? To grieve over a death? Who knows? This world is comprised of mini-worlds; my world, learning to coexist with theirs.

            The bell rudely breaks my thoughts. “Ok! Good afternoon everyone and welcome to IB English IV!” How are teachers so cheerful after they’ve repeated a speech four times already? How? “We’re going to be doing a lot of reading in here, obviously. Your IB exam for English is at the end of this year and it is extremely important that you pass this exam. Whether or not you get your International Baccalaureate diploma depends on it.”

            That sneaky fear stabs my heart, making it painfully lurch inside my chest, like how your body feels when someone slams on the brakes. I have to pass my exams. Nine months. I have nine months to make that happen.

            “What if we don’t pass?” A guy’s voice asks.

            All heads, including mine, turn at the sound of the voice. A tall, muscular boy is sitting, reclining back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, his arm muscles stressing the material of his bright red shirt. A cocky smile spreads over his face as he soaks in all the attention that’s on him. Wait, is that…?

            “Well then. YOLO.” Mrs. Winthrop says, grinning. She nods at his shirt, which is bright red with ‘You Only Live Once’ written on it.

            The entire class starts cracking up, a deep and amused laugh, laced with appreciation. Mrs. Winthrop looks like she’s thirty-five, relatively young for a teacher. I’ve heard only good things about her, but that only made me cautious. The teachers I love, everyone says they hate. The teachers I greatly dislike, everyone loves. It doesn’t seem like the case with Mrs. Winthrop.

            We move on from the subject of exams and start talking about summer reading. “Pass those essays up, guys!” Sighing, I hand the girl next to me, Jennifer, the thick packet with four pages of my guts spilled all over them in an attempt to meet the minimum page limit.

            It’s only then that I realize that my brother isn’t sitting next to me. Where the heck is he? I look around, confused, not believing in the reality of the situation. He should be in this class, should he not? I mean, I know he has a translator and everything but every year, we have all of our classes together, except for Newspaper (I’m on staff, he’s not) and the few classes we take separately (I took Psychology, he decided to go for Economics).