Impress Me

How I Got Here

"Give that back" I cry reaching for my essay.

"96%. What's that, an A+ right." my friend Helen says holding the essay far above my head. She is almost a foot taller than me making my efforts to retrieve my essay redundant. Her dark curls begin to fall out of her perfectly made bun as she shakes the assignment teasingly above my head. "Come on that's all you've got." She refers both to my mark and my efforts to get the essay back.

"I got that mark fair and square. Just because you're jealous doesn't give you the right to steal my stuff." I retort only half jokingly. Despite my cold tone she just laughs, proving that I have no power over her.

"Please, everyone knows you don't deserve that mark Jen." Helen's partner in crime Catrina complains. She's much shorter than Helen, just under my height. She always has her bleach blond hair untamed and unbrushed. "Everyone knows the teacher loves you. She probably didn't even read your essay and just gave you the A. You never study, you take half the time anyone else does on your essays, you don't do over half of your math homework because it's 'too easy'. We all actually try. You on the other hand don't seem to care about school at all."

"That's not true." I plea. "I try I just don't need to try as hard as you do."

"Are you saying we're dumb." Helen asks a frown appearing on her face along with tears in her eyes. Helen is a great person but she is offended very easily and it takes very little effort to make her cry. She is by far one of the most sensitive people I know which is surprising considering how often she teases me.

"Well we've got our in class essays today and I haven't prepared. Looks like we'll see if the teacher just gives me my marks." I say and with that I leave throwing my essay outline in the recycling when no one was looking.

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That summer I found myself retaking English and math. I got a D on that essay and tried to keep that as my average. It's substantially harder than it seems getting D's without failing. There is a very fine line, a line that I did not watch carefully enough. My average dropped to a 58% however I accidentally failed my exam and flunked English and math.

The plan was to get low marks on all of my assignments then pass my exam with flying colours. That ensured that my friends would think I was cool and that I passed with decent marks. This however did not happen. Bad habits are hard to rid yourself of and remembering the proper ways to study and write essays is hard after almost a year of pretending not to know anything.

My teachers got more and more disappointed in me and thought something was happening at home. They tried to put me into counselling multiple times despite my profuse refusals. I tried to explain that nothing was wrong but I can see why it was hard to believe. A student with a 95% average suddenly starts failing all of her classes, it is a tad suspicious.

However this isn't a story about me and my fall to summer school. It's about me trying to build myself back up and this is how I did it.