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“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I said to Kaitlyn, as the bartender walked off to fill another pitcher. “I swear, most of her friends are not like that at all.”
Kaitlyn laughed. “It's fine, really. She’s not the first music snob I’ve ever met. I’ve seen it a lot with other classical instrument players. I’ve learned to just shrug off all the annoyances until they eventually stop bragging.”
“Well, you did an amazing job,” I told her. “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to keep my cool, the way she was just directly insulting you like that…”
She shrugged. “I’ve told you before, I’m really used to the judgment. It doesn’t faze me. Besides, it usually comes from the person’s insecurity rather than something I’m doing wrong.”
I fell more in love with her everyday. She was so patient, calm, so willing to look at the world with an open mind. I loved every bit of her personality.
We walked back over to the table. Thankfully Brianne was locked into a different conversation, so I sat down next to Randi and Abby with Kaitlyn by my side.
“So, Emily, how’s school going?” Randi asked.
The one thing Randi and everyone else knew about me was that I was dedicated to school. They knew because I was constantly not joining in on group events because I was at home studying instead.
“Well, not as great as usual,” I admitted, before nudging Kaitlyn. “This one has me really distracted lately.”
“Ahh, I know that feeling.” Randi smiled at both of us. “When I’ve got a new love interest in my life, I swear, school is the first thing to fall by the wayside.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed, “which is rough, because it’s my last year and everything.”
“Hey!” Kaitlyn said quickly. “I let you study any time you need to.”
I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Babe, before you, every damn night was studying. No matter how much space you give me, I’m taking a step back in my studying. But don’t worry, I love it.” I turned back to Randi. “And actually, I was disciplined earlier this week and took some time away from her to study for a big midterm.”
“Oh, how’d it go?” she asked.
“Actually, I don’t know!” I said quickly. “I think the grades were posted today, now that you mention it.”
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to check my grade online. I normally never forgot when grades were coming out, because I was a little obsessed with it. I guessed it was just another side effect of dating Kaitlyn. Which I guessed was a good thing, because I tended to stress in the days before grades posted, thoughts of my tests coming to my mind every few hours.
Now that I was reminded, the one thing I wanted to do was go home and check my grade. This had been a big midterm. I was pretty sure I’d done well, but if I didn’t, I was going to have to do perfectly the rest of the semester to make up for it.
I could see that Kaitlyn was sensing my agitation. “Can’t you check on your phone?’
‘Right, yeah!” I said, super grateful that she’d reminded me. “I’ll just do that now.”
I pulled my phone out and attempted to log into the online gradebook for my class, but the page just wouldn’t load.
“Ugh, stupid internet,” I groaned.
“It’s the bar!” Abby said loudly over Randi’s shoulder. “I never get good reception here. You can step outside for a second in the courtyard if you really want to check.” She also knew me well enough to know this would become an urgent matter for me.
“Yeah, is that fine? I’m not being rude, right?”
“Nah,” Randi answered. “Alexa’s busy chatting it up, so nobody’s going to notice you’re gone. Go ahead.”
“Perfect, I’ll be right back,” I said. I gave Kaitlyn a quick peck and stepped outside.
Sure enough, the second I was out the door, my phone started to slowly load the page. The further out into the courtyard I got, the faster it seemed to load. I put my log-in info in and sat on a bench while I waited for my gradebook to pull up.
I almost did a double take when I saw it. No, that couldn’t be right… I couldn’t have possibly…
But I did. I had failed. The worst I was expecting had been a C, but I couldn't even manage a D! It was an actual freaking F.
I couldn’t remember ever getting an F in my life. It sounded dramatic, but I felt nauseated. I was in a state of disbelief. How could I have been so confident and so wrong about how well I’d done?
Because I was really that clueless… I knew so little that I hadn’t even had any idea of what I hadn’t known! How could I have let this happen?
