Some Things You Can't Control

24: One Hour of Hell

Chapter 24

One Hour of Hell

- EDEN GARCIA -

This was it.

This morning, I was finally going to find out if this past week of gruelling studying with Dylan was going to have been worth something.

Or, whether it had been an absolute and complete waste of my time.

And his.

The classroom is already packed by the time I reach maths. Unsurprising, since I'm only one minute early. I mean, it's hardly even classifiable as early.

I walk to the middle of the classroom and take my usual seat across from Mickie. She shoots me a smile, and I can already tell that she's a lot less nervous than I am. She's always been good at this class.

Lucky girl.

The teacher, Mrs Davis, walks in not even two seconds later. A stack of papers are clutched in her arms.

Oh boy, here we go.

I just let myself zone out as she goes around the class handing them out, shushing talking students, and then returns to the front of the classroom.

"Oh man, I forgot we had a test today," a guy in my class says a little too loudly.

Well, at least I'm likely to do better than someone.

Poor soul.

And then, all too soon, our one nerve-wracking hour of pure hell arrives.

I open the test paper in front of me.

~•~

The first thing I do when I finally escape is, as promised, message Dylan.

Me: You may have actually helped me learn maths, congratulations

Somehow, it had gone better than expected. Instead of the usual staring blankly at the paper in front of me, completely lost without a clue as to how to even start, I'd been able to answer most — if not all — of the questions.

How?

Dylan.

Dylan: How did you find it?

Me: Easier than expected. Thank you

Dylan: You're welcome, Princess.

We both had other classes we had to get to, so we leave the conversation there for now.

But I make it a goal of mine to try and find Dylan at lunch time to thank him.

I can't help the small smile on my face.

Maybe I did owe it to him to take him out for a nice lunch.

Or dinner.

Mickie branches away to her next class as we reach the end of the corridor, fighting our way through the bodies of students cramming the hallways between classes. With the guys still away on their football trip, I saw few familiar faces, keeping mostly to myself on my way to chemistry.

It's been weird all week, sitting in this class with Aiden nowhere in sight. All term, he'd been sitting right beside me at our two-person table.

Every class had flown by with him here.

Now, it just feels empty.

All I can do is slide down into my chair, and groan when the teacher announces ten minutes into the lesson that we'll be partnering up for today's experiment.