29 Stories of You and Me

15-Stress and Tests

It was the morning of the symposium. I woke up bright and early for my mom to drop me off at the entrance of the school, about an hour before the actual event started since she couldn't drop me off at any other time. 

As I sat there patiently waiting, my friends started coming in one by one. I greeted them, happy to have company. That was also around the time I started anxiously spam calling Lin, wondering why he still wasn't up and coming when the presentations would start soon.

Luckily, the chicken sandwiches made me feel better about this certain predicament.

Eventually, he woke up 5 minutes or so before the presentations began. We both knew he wouldn't get there in time. 

Since the program provided a variety of foods, I grabbed as many as I could that I thought Lin would like and put them on a plate. As tempting as they were, I didn't eat a single bite from the foods. Lin arrived after the first round of presentations were over. Luckily, he had some breakfast to eat. 

There is one reason I bring up this incident: the end of the day ended with Lin storming out of the school while I struggled to understand why.

This ended with both of us crying while calling each other. It was just a huge misunderstanding, where he thought I was jealous of him not sitting with me and I was angry at him for ditching me even though I got him breakfast.

To be honest, I think that was the main turning point to the end of the phase when we broke down and got upset with each other almost every week or so. 

***

AP tests were starting soon, so naturally, everyone was upset and stressed.

Maybe it was the stress that was getting to me, or maybe I had too much ice cream that week, but my cramps were killing me. We also happened to be in physics class, the last physics class before the AP test.

I screamed and wiggled weirdly on my chair while Alex and Lin tried to comfort me while also doing their physics work. They gave me hugs and warm words of encouragement but I couldn't stand it anymore. I struggled to the restroom and fell on the floor, my stomach killing me. A girl walked in and asked if I needed the nurse, to which I replied "yes", and the nurse came in asking me what was wrong.

I told the nurse my cramps were extremely bad and I couldn't walk. The nurse got a wheelchair from her office and wheeled me there. She let me sit on her sofa and gave me a heating pad, where I fell asleep after she called my dad to come pick me up.

Before I left, the nurse noticed that I didn't have my backpack or any of my stuff on me. She asked where I left them, to which I replied, "my physics teacher's room". She called him, but Mr. G. said there were no backpacks left behind. I thought about who else to ask.

"It might be with Sarah," I told her.

So Sarah came up to the nurse's office and gave me my backpack. I patted the sides for my phone and realized they weren't there. To my disappointment, Sarah didn't know where they were either.

Luckily, I realized that I had given Lin my phone before I trudged to the bathroom. I had the nurse call his Spanish class and he said that he had my phone. The office ladies wouldn't let him go into the nurse's office, so he left immediately after.

I went home and fell asleep again, feeling much better after drinking some brown sugar water.

***

In the end, we made it through AP week alive. There isn't much to talk about besides the fact Lin decided to not take the APUSH test because he didn't want to waste time studying for it. I later scolded him for choosing not to when he got good grades on every single test we took in that class.

And so, with the closing of April, finals and the end of the school year quickly approached.