A Way Back Home | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Two)

Dr. B. Brown (52)

A/N: I wanted to post this last night but the wifi at my house kind of peaced out for a while sorry!!

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I hold my breath as my math teacher walks between the rows of desks, handing out tests with red marks all over them. His hair is greying, almost turning white, and he has dark eyes that lost their life after years of dealing with high school students. He's too old to still be working here and his hands tremble like old people's hands do. Like when they pour water into a glass, or hand you a test and you close your eyes because you're terrified of the grade you might get and the reaction your legal guardian might have when she sees it.

It's just me and this goddamn test I have hidden under my folded arms and the blackness behind my eyelids and the chattering of students I'm trying to block out before I flip my desk because everything is too much, my anxiety is to much, what if I failed, what if Laura—

"Hey, Way? What'd you get?" Ryder asks, spinning in his chair and tapping me on the shoulder.

I say through gritted teeth, my eyes still squeezed shut, "I don't know. If I just don't look at it, it doesn't exist and I can't have failed."

He snorts. "There's no way you did worse than me." I hear him wave his paper inches from my face, feel the coolness of it fanning my skin. "I got a 52."

"Well at least you didn't fail," I say bitterly. "At least you don't live with Laura Barry and have to go home to her creepy smile when she pretends she's not mad at you, but you know she really is mad at you, and— hey!" I feel my test slide out from under my arms. My eyes pop open, I make a grab for the paper, but my hand hangs in the air when I see the smirk on Ryder's face and the way he's eyeing the number at the top.

He shakes his head, his blue eyes flicking from the paper, up to me, and back down again. "Way, Way, Way."

"Don't do this to me, Ryde." I cover my face in my hands, say through the cracks in my fingers, "Just tell me what I got."

"I don't know if you should even go home today."

My blood runs cold. "No, no, no, I feel like I'm gonna throw up."

"I'm kidding!" Ryder says quickly, he holds up my test and points at my grade frantically. "Look, you're fine, you got a 75!"

"I got a what now?"

"You got a 75! Now, please, don't throw up."

I take my test from him and flip through the pages, seeing a lot of red, but more checkmarks than exes. "This is... this is honestly better than I could've hoped for. I guess that whole studying thing really isn't useless." I lie my head on my desk, exhausted with the remnants of what very nearly turned into a panic attack. "Now we just hope that it's good enough for Laura."

"It's gotta be," Ryder says confidently. He reasons, "'Cause you were, like, failing math before, right? And 75 is nowhere near a fail, right? So, yeah, it's gotta be good enough for her."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I say, even though it didn't actually make me feel very much better about the situation. "Either way, I know Emerald is gonna be proud of me. And Gerard is gonna be more proud of me than what it's worth."

"Yeah, but you won't even be able to tell them if Laura takes your phone away."

My head snaps up off my desk and I eye Ryder with what I hope is a death-stare. "In what world did you think saying that would help the situation?"

He looks down. "Sorry."

I roll my eyes just as the bell rings. A new wave of nerves washes over me because it means I get to join the stampede of kids out in the hall (Ryder had the right idea when he dashed out of the classroom ahead of everyone else), shove my way through the exit, and— the best part— get in Laura's car and go to therapy. If the sarcasm wasn't evident, the whole getting in Laura's car and going to therapy is actually the worse part. I don't want a new therapist, first of all. I only want Sam. Even though, granted, I did lie to her an ungodly amount of times.