Studying is for overachievers

Studying is for losers. I've maintained a high standard of mediocrity by not studying, and I'm not about to have some epihany now. Social media is calling, and I need to post a gripe about the stupid test interfering with skip day anyway.

I grab some cold pizza and a soda from the kitchen on the way up to my room. I scroll through my feeds, make the obligatory sympathy post, then decide I need to take care of another matter. It's probably due to having seen Adam Wright, the captain of the football team, post a selfie of him with nothing on but a pair of bright blue briefs that were either a size too small or they just don't make them big enough to contain things.

I lock the bathroom door so I can "shower" and rub one out fantasizing about how big Adam's package actually is. With that pressure release taken care of, I take an actual shower. I walk back to my room in my standard nighttime outfit, a cami and a pair of panties. My stepdad works nightshift, so the only person who could possibly see me is my mother.

As it so happens, she sees me as I make the trip from the bathroom to my room. She says, "I realize I'm the only other person here, but you could wait until you get to your room to minimize your outfit."

I say, "That would be another outfit that would be wasted."

"Much like the water every night when you shower? I know what you're doing."

I sigh, roll my eyes and say, "Yes, but when Colin is home from college, his showers are three times as long as mine."

She has no words.

I say to my mother, "Anyway, I'm going to bed, I have a test tomorrow and should probably get some actual sleep."

She kisses me goodnight on the cheek and goes back downstairs.

I scroll through my feed again, check to see what kind of response I got on my post. Lots of likes, some funny comments, some sympathy comments, and then Eric and Lewis both commented with the "haha" emoji. They are my best friends but they can be assholes sometimes.

~ ~ ~

I don't remember falling asleep, but it must have been soon after I laid down. I wake up to the alarm on my phone going off. I groggily turn over and examine it, only to see it is alarm number six. I should explain, I have six alarms set for every weekday. The first is an hour ahead of when I need to leave for school, and then each succeeding alarm is ten minutes closer to when I have to leave. This being the last alarm it means I have ten minutes to dress and get out the door.

I text Eric to make sure he plans on coming by on time to pick me up, and once he confirms, I scramble. I strip down to nothing and find my lucky underwear. It’s a matched bran and thong set, a brilliant fire engine red, and I always wear it on test days.

During finals weeks every quarter I do laundry every day that week, which surprises the hell out of my mother, but my lucky undergarments haven’t failed me yet. I’ve never failed a test while wearing them.

I grab a pair of blue jeans and yank them on, secure with a white double grommet belt, my favorite. I love belts and I feel naked if I don’t have one on. Weird, I know, but I have nightmares that my pants are going to slide down my legs while I’m walking, or worse, someone is going to pants me in the hallway at school. I tend to be paranoid about stupid stuff, so don’t mind me.

I dig through a dresser drawer and find a plain hot pink tee that I technically outgrew three years ago after my boobs finally came in, so not only does it accentuate my breasts a little more, it leaves an inch or two of my midriff exposed. I figure it might distract Perkins a little when he is grading my test tonight and he might accidentally forget to mark a few questions wrong.

No time for makeup, and I pull my blonde hair up in a messy bun. It's a science test, not a formal dance.

There is a soft knock on the front door. That would be Lewis. Eric used to honk, but my stepdad is asleep after work, and it woke him up. He followed me out to the car that day and told Eric if he ever “fucking honked again at seven in the morning on a weekday” he would “beat the hell out of Eric’s car with a sledgehammer” so as a result, Eric picks up Lewis, then sends Lewis to the front door to knock and then we leave.

I slip into a pair of sandals, and open the door.