You're Not Enough

Chapter 78

I button up my pants and pull my hoodie over top of my head...I'm kind of nervous about taking the SAT, even though I'm not going to college, and it doesn't really matter what I get. I'm still pretty nervous about taking it. I don't want to disappoint my dad. I take a deep breath and sit on my bed, putting on my shoes. There's a knock at my door.

"Come in!"

"Hey, Jay." My father walks in. He is wearing a black and white suit, with a yellow tie in his hand.

"Hey," I say in a low voice.

"Look, I'm sorry about last night," he says. I continue tying my shoes, not looking up at him. "I just want to let you know that I am retracting my payments from the colleges," he says.

"What?" I look up at him wide-eyed.

"I need to let you do this on your own. I have full confidence that you can get into UCLA and any other Ivy League school without my money," he says. I look back at my shoes and continue tying them. "I'll be downstairs when you're ready," he says.

"You're taking me?" I ask before he leaves.

"Yeah, your mom went to lunch with some people from the country club."

"Oh."

He walks out of my room, closing the door behind him. I walk over to my bed and grab my journal; I need to write my entry for this morning. I don't have time to write it here,

I'll write it in the car.

...

As we drive down the street towards the school, I can't help the nervousness I feel stirring in me. My palms are sweaty, and I keep picking at my nails. My mom said there's only going to be a few students in the testing room. But who are those students? Is it, Ashely? Is it Matt? Ryder?

Or worse. All of them.

I look back down at my journal and continue writing.

The unknown is killing me. I should've asked my mother to ask Ms.Moore, who exactly will be there. I think I can tolerate Ashely. I probably could tolerate Matt too. But Ryder, I can't, I don't want to see him, I can't see him. I don't want to walk in and have his dark green eyes meet mine. I don't want to feel his burning gaze as he watches my every move. Will he try to talk to me? Will he make an excuse for not ever calling me? For not checking up on me to see if I was okay? I thought maybe we were getting somewhere. Perhaps this time, he was really going to change. I feel like I have said this too many times to count. I always give him chance after chance. After he does something, he always comes back and says he is going to be different. I always tell myself not to believe him and remember that he can never change because he's incapable of loving and caring for someone other than himself. I mean, look at the way he treats his own girlfriend. According to him, that isn't even his girlfriend, yet he sleeps with her. I mean, who has sex with someone that they're not even with. Maybe the things he says to me he doesn't say to her. Perhaps when they are together, he kisses her and tells her he loves her; he assures her that she's the only person he wants. Maybe they don't just have sex together. Instead, they make love, turning their emotional feelings towards one another into something physical, something special. It just hit me that maybe he's lying to me and not her. Nope, he's not; I mean, he cheated on her. And I doubt that's the first time he has cheated on her. She has to know. Maybe that's what he meant when he said, "there's a lot you don't know about that goes on at that school."

Perhaps the school that I feel is very cliche isn't cliche at all.

Maybe it's the total opposite, maybe behind the standard high school status quo, along with the typical cliche story lies broken people.