Crossing Paths

Chapter 1

"You really screwed up this time." 

"Shut up, Jeremiah." I protested, glaring sharply at my brother from the passenger's seat. If he hadn't been driving, I would have been been tempted to shove him. Being as though he was a bad enough driver as is, I wasn't planning on doing anything to lessen our odds of getting home in one piece. 

"What are Mom and Dad gonna say when they figure out their faultless little girl isn't so perfect?" He continued to taunt, taking his eyes off the road long enough for me to see the malicious gleam in them. 

"I failed one class. So what? You've done a lot worse." I argued, resting my head against the window of Jeremiah's beat up piece of junk he called a car. 

"Yeah, but they expect that from me." He replied with a smirk and a small shrug of his shoulders. "Besides, I'm not the one who wants to be a psychologist but can't pass a simple high school psychology class." 

As much as I hated to admit, I didn't really have much more room to argue. With four AP classes, I struggled to find the time left over for the psychology that I had added onto my workload that semester. Without enough enough space in my schedule to actually focus on the class, my grades had been lacking. After adding my recently bombed final to the equation, I knew Jeremiah was right. 

I had an F in the class and tomorrow was the last day in the semester. 

I was completely and utterly screwed.   

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"Sweetie, I'm just not quite sure how to wrap my head around this." My mom sighed, placing her fork down on her plate. The disappointed look in her eyes was almost enough to make me want to hole myself up in my room and wallow in self pity. I wasn't one to run away from my problems, but nothing was quite worse than letting your parents down. 

When you had a failure for an older brother, all of your parent's exceptions fell to you. Most of the time, I was able to carry the burden. But this time, I seemed to be staggering under the weight on my shoulders. My parents knew how much becoming a psychologist meant to me. To them, this seemed like a huge step in the wrong direction. It didn't matter that it was just a stupid high school class. I had failed and that was something that they just weren't used to. 

"What happened, Aliyah?" My dad questioned, pinning me down with a thoughtful look. "You said you were enjoying the class."

"I did." I protested softly, purposefully playing around with the food on my plate to avoid the infamous awkward dinner discussion. "I though that I was prepared for the final but I just... wasn't." 

A heavily silence ensued around the table. 

"I'm sorry." I finished lamely, not sure what else to say. I glanced up at Jeremiah, who was being uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole conversation. Just as I suspected, there was an unbearable smugness etched onto his face. 

He had been waiting practically his whole life for me to let down my parents. Unfortunately for me, the big day had finally come. Much to my annoyance, he was enjoying it about as much as I thought he would. I was about to call him out on it, but my parents weren't through with me yet. 

"Well this certainly isn't going to look good to Westford. You aren't going to get any scholarships towards their psychology program if you can't even pass a high school class." My dad announced sullenly, staring down distastefully at his dinner plate as though it was the source of all of his problems. 

"We don't know that for sure, Henry." My mom cut it firmly. She reached out to place a well manicured hand on top on my father's arm. "Maybe we should call Willow and-"