Page 49 - Solstice Art & Literary Magazine 2021

HIGH
STAKES
LIA FAWLEY
been able to tell who it was just by the back of his head, but now she recognized the shaggy hair and slumping shoulders. He was in her math class, but she couldn’t pro- nounce his name, and had never been brave enough to ask him how to say it or to even try. In fact, she was dismayed to find she couldn’t even remember it. But that was just because of nerves. She was think- ing too hard and was sure it would come to her when she got home.
“Good luck, Anna,” he whispered.
“Um... thanks. You too.” Anna wanted to melt into her chair. It was like he could tell she didn’t know. But of course, the name Anna is
way easier to re- member. It’s only four letters long, two of which are the same, and it’s also a pal- indrome. If his name was sim- pler, more tradi- tional, of course she’d have known it. Right?
This boy was good at making her feel like she was wrong, and she didn’t like it at all. Her thoughts wandered to an incident
that had occurred a few days prior. She’d been at lunch, com- plaining about how often her par- ents made the SAT tutors come,
and how long each of her sessions were. Yes, it was helpful, and yes, she’d improved greatly from her first practice test to her most recent real one, but there were so many other things she’d rather be doing in her free time.
At that point in her deluge, she heard a snort from someone she couldn’t see and whipped her head around defensively. It was the boy, as- sessing her, almost disdainfully, from a few seats down. She hadn’t realized he sat at the same lunch table.
“Um, is there a problem?” she ventured.
“No, just wanted to say I’ll take your sessions if you hate them so much.”
She took in the packed lunch sitting uneaten before him—the kind they offer to kids who need them that they pretend are just as good as the hot lunches you pay for but obviously aren’t. Next to him sat a hand-me-down backpack, a battered library copy of last year’s SAT guide peeking out at the top where the zip- per sagged. Feeling her face turning a flattering shade of pink, she told her friends she needed to use the re-
CONTINUES
The items on the desk were arranged precisely; there was not a hair out of place. A yellow No. 2 pencil rested in the
divot at the front, a small case filled with a sharpener and several pink pearl erasers sat parallel to the left edge, a sleek new graphing calcula- tor lay to the right. Anna tapped her fingers on the artificial wood, follow- ing the same pattern she always did when she was nervous—left to right and back again. Each round, the tic became more and more frantic, no longer taps, but insistent thumps.
When the proctor came in, she finally stilled. A middle-aged woman who looked as if she’d rath- er be anywhere else but inside this stuffy room filled with anxious teen- agers and a rattling air conditioning unit, the proctor began to recite the script Anna had already heard several times before. She’d taken so
many practice tests, and an official one as well, that she could have re- cited that script from memory.
A booklet landed on her desk, and she mechanically bubbled in the necessary information. She placed her pen-
cil back in posi-
tion, realigned
her tools, and
glanced around
the room. Her
gaze fell on a
boy sitting near
the front, furi-
ously picking at
his fingernails
and tapping his
foot against the
tiled floor. As
if he felt some-
one’s eyes on him, the boy turned slightly and met Anna’s gaze. She shifted uncomfortably—she hadn’t
NEXT TO HIM SAT A HAND-ME- DOWN BACKPACK, A BATTERED LIBRARY COPY OF LAST YEAR’S SAT GUIDE PEEKING OUT AT THE TOP WHERE THE ZIPPER SAGGED.
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