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Malia-Tarni
“Time to stop sulking, MT!” Summer calls out with way too much enthusiasm as she lets herself into my room and immediately cuts off my music midway through ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries. I’ve been ignoring her messages to meet up for a couple of weeks now so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s taken matters into her own hands and got a key to my room. Probably seduced the security guard or something.
I glare at her from under my duvet.
“Jesus, it stinks in here. When did you last go out? Or open a window? Or shower?”
I don’t answer. It hasn’t been that long. I got my first essay result back last Monday and it’s now…shit.
“What day is it?”
“It’s Friday! Which means we’re going out! I’m not taking no for an answer. I even dragged all my shit over here from my shitty dorm with my weird roommate to help you get ready.”
“I’m really not feeling up to it, Sum,” I tell her. And I mean it. I’ve not just been feeling down about my essay – though that is a huge part of it – I’ve been really under the weather too. I can’t really explain it properly but I just feel like I have no energy, beyond normal tiredness or burn out.
I feel like the universe is sucking me dry, and that just sounds stupid to my ears.
“So you flunked your first assignment, it’s no big deal!”
It’s at times like these when I wonder if Summer knows me at all. This is everything. I don’t fail school work. Ever. I’m such a failure at so many other things – communicating, socialising, being normal – that my control over my school work is iron-clad. I excel at the things I can control; it’s my thing.
“I didn’t flunk it. My essay was flawless.”
“Then what’s got you so upset?”
“He failed me! There was nothing wrong with my thesis and every line of my argument was backed up with thorough, literary and academic research, and he flunked me anyway.”
I haven’t told Summer any of what’s been going on. My professor has been riding my ass since the earbuds day, calling me out in class, firing almost every question my way, and publicly humiliating and chastising me whenever I’ve been too overwhelmed by everything to give a satisfactory answer. Which is pretty much all the time because I’ve been avoiding Bhodi by arriving late and sitting as far away from him as possible too. Changing seats every class has played havoc with my OCD and I’m just…at breaking point. I’m so emotionally strung out, I can’t function. And I don’t know how to get back to ‘me’ anymore.
I don’t know what I’ve done to make my teacher hate me so much, but I do know that my essay was unfairly graded. Without telling Summer all the gruesome backstory, I just say that it was definitely down marked.
“Well, go to the head of the department. Demand a re-mark.”
“The grades are already in the system and the appeal deadline has passed.”
“When was it?”
“Ten a.m. on Monday. Last week.”
“And when did you get your essay back?”
“At five to ten, Monday.”
Summer’s eyes flash with anger on my behalf.
“Well that just settles it then! You need a night out to get drunk and forget that asshole professor. She’s probably just jealous because your boobs don’t need a giant over the shoulder boulder holder to get them up past your knees.” I crack a small smile which immediately falls when I think of my professor’s handsome but cold, unsmiling face.
“She is a he, so definitely no boob envy.”
“Ooooh, maybe he fancies you!” I shoot her an incredulous look. “He’s flunking you on purpose so that you go to him for a little one-on-one tutoring…”
“It’s one to one. You’re thinking of something else, and you can get your mind out of the proverbial gutter because he definitely doesn’t fancy me. He’s just an arsehole.”
“You should say asshole, you’ll fit in better here.”
“Yeah right, like changing my vocabulary’s going to help with that.”
“Whatever. Get up. You’re going to shower in your fancy en suite while I ventilate this room before the fumigators get called in.”
