Just for Now

MAtells me it’s okay. That it won’t always be like this, that one day I’ll be past school and all of these issues will be over. I want to believe her. But as I blow my nose into the umpteenth tissue, and bury my tear-streaked face into her already-damp shoulder, I can’t help but cry. It just hurts so much.

I spent the whole of today outside the classroom again. Not because I was playing hooky or getting away with things, but because Miss Ehrentrau needed to help me “catch up” on math. That math that I slaved over for homework the whole Sunday, and apparently, still got wrong. Which is why I sat at a small, wooden desk in a big, empty classroom, staring at a bunch of numbers which meant less than nothing, as my class, one flight up, did something else entirely. As Miss Ehrentrau tried to coax answers that would not come out of my brain, I felt like the whole empty room was filled with despair. So now I cry, because I try, how I try. But it never, ever works.

My classmates get to kid around about homework. They also don’t seem to care about tests, and breeze through their Sundays and evenings, having fun, chilling, whatever. But not me. I have a private tutor three times a week, and Dad helps me on the other nights. Even with all that, passing a test is like trying to fly a rocket with no training and a blindfold over my eyes. Basically, impossible.

School only gets harder as you get older, I find. Suddenly you’re being piled with reams of work, tests, finals, you name it, and the anxiety starts to hurt my insides before each day. I’m a fun kid; spunky, friendly, and kind. I have a bunch of friends, can dance and sing, too. But when it’s time for a test, my confidence goes out the window. I sit, chewing at the end of my pen, waiting for the thoughts to come through. On my right, Tilly is scribbling furiously, while inside my brain, all I can see is a rainbow-colored mush. Focus, Avital, I tell myself. You can do this, Dad showed you how the Pythagoras theorem works. Nothing comes, apart from ink leaking into my mouth as the pen-top breaks. Tilly is already on the last page of the test, while I’m still on the first. It may as well be Chinese, for what I understand. I put down my head, and cry.