“You’re really worried, aren’t you…”
“Of course I’m really worried, Shaula. I don’t know what sort of luck is divinely bestowed upon a royal such as yourself, but us commoners still have a chance of doing poorly on a test like the one… especially for this English class.”
“Come on, Ajax, be reasonable here. She’s not a bad teacher, is she? Ms Rowfield’s always fair and I honestly think she gives pretty interesting assignments and tests.”
“I do like her teaching style more than last year’s English class, don’t get me wrong. But, the average for the midterms in her class was a C+!”
“Your mark was an A, though…”
“O-Ok, fine, my mark ended up well, b-but that could just have been a fluke, you know? There aren’t any past final exams for her English class available online. There’s maybe a fifty-fifty chance I prepare the wrong way for it.”
“You’re literally reading a thing of papers Christa herself provided to let us all know what to expect!”
“Ok, I know that, fine, I know that! B-But still, English isn’t my strong suit, what do you want me to say!? I’m more of a math guy anyways. Math is so much easier! As long as you know the formula, you can just plug some numbers in even if it's a word problem! The concepts just make sense to me. English… It’s just not my thing.”
Shaula sighs in exasperation at Ajax’s never ending list of excuses to justify continuing to worry himself to death.
“English has just as much ‘formula’ as any Math course, Ajax.” Ajax’s lips tremble. He bites his lower lip in anxiety.
“But… if I do badly on this, my GPA is going to be wrecked. I-I know I’m pretty much set for Lower Dietrich… but I’ve had some bad dreams, you know? What if I don’t get in because I failed my English final? I mean, imagine if you failed to get into your apprenticeship because you didn’t have any music credits or something? It’s just so irrelevant to a chemical engineering program and then I think, ‘Oh shit, if I fail, I’ll either have to repeat the grade with no chance to get into an ivy league this time or I’ll have to see about getting accepted into one of my safety picks, or…’”
As Ajax starts mumbling to himself about his prospects, Shaula takes out a few sheets of paper that comprises a math assignment she had received during her morning classes.
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“H-How would dad feel? I can’t just go up to him and say I couldn’t get into Dietrich because I failed an Eng– Ow.” Ajax’s expression turns emotionless.
Shaula simply tapped his skull firmly with her rolled up assignment papers. Then she smacks him lightly across his right cheek with it. The action doesn’t garner any attention from their surroundings, nor did it hurt Ajax, but she persistently does it while Ajax just sits there with hollowed out eyes.
As if he’s thinking to himself that should have expected this to happen, but also can’t believe it is happening in public.
This has been something Shaula does sometimes. If you can’t stop worrying for no good reason about the future, then maybe a bit of goofiness would set you right straight. Such was Shaula’s purpose right now. It slowly starts to irritate Ajax.
“Shaula– Wait– Can you just– I’m trying to think about– Stop. Stop. Come on. Stop.”
A few students sitting at other cafeteria tables see her lightly annoying him and turn away with a bit of laughter while Ajax just sits there getting more and more annoyed by her rolled up papers. He tries to move to his left out of her reach. Yet, he couldn’t really get away, since he was sitting directly beside her on the same cafeteria table seat plank. Wherever he scooted, she would just follow.
The funny thing was that she wouldn’t stop until enough time passed or he yelled at her to stop. Since he didn’t want to make a scene, all he could do was sit there until she got bored or until she assessed that he had learned his lesson.
He stops complaining, trying to think of it as a weirdly textured head and face massage. Eventually, Shaula simply huffs, unable to get a rise out of him. Once or twice he had been annoyed enough to yell out and catch the amused attention of a bunch of nearby students, though not this time.
At least, he stops thinking too hard about his English final.
Shaula sighs and offers her own opinion, putting her papers back into her backpack.
“You know that the moment you complete your test, you’ll forget all about it, right? But then, instead of worrying about doing the test you’ll worry about getting your marks. Then, after you get your marks, you’ll start worrying about the start of the first semester. Then, when the first semester at Dietrich starts you’ll worry about something else.
“The cycle will go on and on until finally in your fourth year of college, you’ll worry about the outcome of those sets of final finals. Then, you’ll graduate and worry about your work performance on your first post-undergrad job. Then, you’ll worry about getting a good interest rate on a mortgage for you and your wife, then you’ll worry about your kids, then you’ll worry about your kid’s grades–”
“Alright, alright, I get it. Live in the present or whatever. Fine, I’ll do just–”
“No, Ajax, my point is that you should just not worry. Whatever happens in life will happen and it was always meant to happen. All you get by worrying is hours you’ll never get back. I mean, won’t you feel pretty stupid looking back on your teens in highschool in your forties or fifties and worrying about whether you’ll do good on some test, instead of living your highschool life?”
Ajax lets out a long breath. Shaula looks at him intently while he stares blankly towards the cafeteria wall a few meters away, covered in high school club posters. He knows she’s right. She’s always right.