The Surgeon II. [ON HOLD]

IV.

Aaliyah

Walking across campus, I happily sipped on my hot caramel macchiato from our campus Starbucks with the intent to have a good day. I was pleased that I wasn't so drained from the party the other night, but I couldn't deny the giddy feeling I had since Friday was approaching faster than I expected. I still couldn't believe Ben wants to take me out on a date, so the only hope I had were for things to go the way I imagined.

"What's got you so quiet?" I heard Jodie say from bedside me.

I quickly turned my head in her direction and allowed my braids to rest on my shoulders. "Nothing exciting."

"Hmm, I bet it's the date you have with Ben tomorrow night." She said with a smirk, causing me to roll my eyes.

"I swear you want this relationship to happen more than I do!" I complained.

"Uh yes, everybody does. You two are powerful on the court, imagine how much more powerful you'll be together!"

"I'm not that powerful, Jodie—"

"Shit, better than me. I still question how I was able to get on the team!" She cut me off.

Her booming tone was too much for me in this morning, so I simply shook my head and remained quiet until we made it to our first class. We sat in our unassigned seats in the middle of the lecture hall and pulled out our MacBooks in order to sign on before class began. As other students starting to come in, we all made light conversation until my chemistry teacher Mr. Brown walked in with his checkered suspenders that barely held in his gut.

"Good morning, everyone. I hope you've all prepared for your pre-lecture quiz!"

"We had a quiz!?" I whispered in Jodi's ear.

Nervously, she shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't look at the syllabus!"

Man, I am fucked!

I thought to myself as I felt sweat collect at the brim of my forehead. I sunk low in my seat and tried to pray in hopes that God would pull me through this. I was already struggling with the course overall and knew that if I didn't do well on this quiz that my grade would drop even lower; why did I chose this major again?

Starting from the first row, Mr. Brown gave the papers to one student to pass along until everyone had their quiz. When I grabbed my own, I looked at the paper with wide eyes and almost wanted to shit my pants — balancing chemical equations was my hardest topic.

"Just breathe, Liyah." Jodie said before touching my forearm. "You know I'll slide you my answers in a minute; Mr. Brown doesn't pay attention to anything anyway."

I nodded my head vigorously and felt a bit at ease that she was willing to help me. To seem occupied, I started to look over the questions and had a jolt of confidence that I was able to do at least two out the five questions on my own — I definitely needed to seek a student tutor after this.