Lavender Lace

One

One

Ashlyn

First day back in the new year. Exactly the 7th January 2020. The big 2020! The year I am meant to finish my GCSEs and go out into the world and be a real big kid.

Haha, no.

Not happening.

I don't want to leave because that means that I actually have to try-

"Ash!"

"Huh?" I reply, as I'm startled out of my head by Ms Kingsley who was looking down her nose at me.

"We have been back not even ten minutes and I've already lost you. Heaven forbid you manage to get through the rest of this academic year. Please, pay attention!" She chides me.

I nod and glance over at the whiteboard displaying Pythagoras Theorem, sighing loudly in my head. I absolutely do not understand a single symbol or word on that screen.

I nudge Lorna, who didn't notice because she was frantically copying down what Kingsy drew on the board before she wiped it off. I nudged her again, after she'd finished, to which she looked up at me expectantly.

"Yeah?"

"Can you explain to me what's going on? I have no idea what I'm looking at."

"Not right now," she paused while she added to her notes an extra point that Kingsy suggested, "I can explain it at break if you want."

"Break? You think I'm going to waste my precious free time out of this shithole on maths? You must take me for somebody that actually cares about this bullshit." I reply, chuckling in disbelief.

Ms Kingsley looked over to me once more down her glasses lenses that perched securely on the bridge of her nose. "Ash, what is the matter now?"

"Nothing miss, I'm just comparing my notes with Lorna because I missed something." I replied back, grabbing a pen so I can write the date at the top of my page. Well shit, I haven't done that in a while.

She dismisses my statement and continues the lesson, as I look over Lorna's arm and begin to copy her notes.

"Ash I don't know how you're expecting to pass if you won't even try. You even said yourself that you need to do well in this subject or they will kick you off the team." Lorna whispered to me, revealing the remainder of the page for me to copy.

"Yeah but it's hard stuff, plus I actually cannot grasp it at all. Besides, who is gonna need Pythagoras Theorem in real life anyway? I can tune out for this bit." I respond, copying down a couple of notes from her page, putting my pen down quickly after that.

"I know but it comes up as a big part of the exam which is only a few months away. Be realistic Ash, you're barely scraping a 4 in the mocks and your target grade is a 6. How are you going to make such a tight turnaround if you don't try?" Lorna says to me flatly. "I can only help you with so much."

"I will I will, just not right now I've got other things on my mind".

"Like what? Football? Because I am too. I have training with the kids tonight, and T's taken a miss because she's not well apparently." I stared at her. "How am I meant to manage 30 screaming 9 year olds on a muddy pitch without her?"

"Why's Tiana not in?" I ask.

"I have no idea, she just sent me a picture on Snapchat this morning saying that she's not sure if she can make it to training today. She's not in school, I haven't seen her at all today. I mean it said on the register in English the letter 'i' so I'm going to assume she's ill."