class of 2013 ✓

01 | law of attraction

"All in all, Susan Rawlings' suicide was caused by a number of factors, including the traditional gender roles forced upon her that she did not want to fulfill," I say as loudly as possible. Hovering the cursor over the next button, I change the projector to the next slide of my presentation. Truthfully, there are a million other things I'd rather do right now than stand here in front of my fellow classmates and yack on and on about a short story I only read the Sparknotes for.

Anything for an A, I guess. Thank God it's almost over.

I feel like I could've enjoyed the short if I actually had time to read it. That's the thing though—I didn't have the time. Between midterm season creeping around the corner, my college essays, scholarship applications, shifts at the diner, articles I need to write for the newspaper, club meetings I need to attend—my time is limited. And frankly, there are more important things to worry about. My grade is high enough in this class so I can completely bomb this assignment and still have an A+.

Scanning the crowd, I notice that most of them aren't paying attention, anyway. A group of girls in the back corner have turned their attention to their phones, where they're playing a game of Uno. Some students in the front have their heads down, most likely asleep. Even my best friend, Nea, looks like she zoned out. Amidst all the uninterested students, Mr. Tsega nods at the nonsense spewing from my mouth, jotting down notes on his yellow pad, watching me like his life depended on it. Usually, I'd be offended at people not paying attention to me, though I can't really blame them. Not when Mr. Tsega forces us to do these robotic analyses of the story that only fit his interpretation. English is my favorite subject by far, but this class makes me question that fact every single day, I swear.

"That's it," I say, exhaling a breath of relief as I flash the last slide.

"Thank you, Remi. That was very well thought out and organized," Mr. Tsega declares, standing up so he can switch off the projector. "Anyone have any questions?"

Quickly, I hurry to my seat next to Nea in the middle. No one was paying attention, and I just wanted to leave. Public speaking isn't exactly my thing. I do it when I have to only.

"Alright," Mr. Tsega grumbles, rubbing the stubble on his jaw as he flips through his clipboard. "If there are no concerns then I suppose we can move on to the next person."

"Actually," a voice from the other side of the room calls, "I have a question."

Internally, I groan. Great. Just when I thought I was done with this mess forever. From my periphery, I see Blaise Yang with his hand raised as he slowly leans back on his chair.

Of course, it's him. I don't recall him asking anyone else a question. He's been hellbent on making my life as miserable as possible ever since he's laid eyes on me. It started in kindergarten when the teacher announced that we were the two students with the highest little star stickers next to our names. Obviously, now I know how meaningless that was. The prize for having the most was food, which—while an added bonus—could easily be bought if I just asked my mom. Nonetheless, my competitive spirit was strong—if not, stronger than it is now, and you know damn well I was going to do anything in my power to be first. She had us ro sham bo for the ice cream sandwich. Unsurprisingly, since I have the worst luck amongst all of humanity, I lost and was forced to watch him eat the dessert-like it was the best thing he's ever tasted.

Yeah, elementary school wasn't very fun.

Unfortunately, the competitions didn't stop there. Although I know they didn't intend to, it seemed like teachers put us toe-to-toe on every occasion, since we were usually quite evenly matched. I won some, I lost some.

But I fucking hate losing. So naturally, I hated the cause of defeat, which just happened to be a 6 foot something Chinese boy that was the only person in our grade that could get away with untucking his shirts.