Extra Credit

ARE THE MOMMY OR THE DADDY?

​Kam

​After lunch, I slipped into my usual seat in AP Bio. I was actually excited, which was rare for a Monday, but Biology was my favorite subject. I loved the structure of it—so much to memorize, so much to understand. There were so many interesting things about the human and animal body that I didn’t know yet, and I was hungry to learn them all.

​I also loved our teacher, Ms. Briana Banks. She was basically my hero. She had double-majored in Anatomy and Biology in college and graduated at the top of her class. She’d always wanted to teach since she was young, and you could tell she actually cared. I was objectively her favorite, probably because I actually did the work and wasn't a rude piece of s**t like half the class was.

​She was usually so happy whenever she saw me, but today, she had a weird look on her face when she walked into class. My stomach dropped instantly, all that morning excitement fading into a cold knot of dread. Ms. Bri tapped on my desk as she passed, gave me another unreadable look, and nodded toward the door—a silent sign for me to follow her outside.

​I stood up, my legs feeling a bit like lead. On my way out, I was faced with Jax. Again.

​"Hi," he whispers, standing partially in my way with a curious smile. I gave him my usual small, polite smile. I know, I know—I should probably have frowned at him or ignored him, but I was a little too distracted by the sinking feeling in my chest to play hard to get.

​Jax

​Oh my god. Oh my god! He smiled at me! Kameo actually smiled at me!!

​Kameo

​I followed Ms. Bri outside and shut the classroom door behind me, the hallway feeling eerily quiet compared to the chatter inside. I looked at her, trying to keep a brave smile on my face, but I’m sure it looked forced.

​"Is everything okay, Ms. Bri?" I asked, my voice low and steady. I was bracing myself for the worst. In my experience, nothing good ever happens to me without something bad following close behind, and lately, things had been unusually good. Right now, I was certain that something devastating was about to come out of her mouth.

​I was right. "Kameo, I was grading your last test over the weekend," she started, her tone soft. My heart skipped a beat. "I graded your paper... and there was a bit of a problem." My pulse began to hammer in my ears. "You made a few mistakes that you usually wouldn't and, well, you ended up getting... a B+."

​No. No, no, no. This had to be a terrible dream that I would soon be waking up from. "A B?" I whisper, the letter feeling like a physical weight on my tongue. My eyes glazed over, suddenly full of hot, stinging tears that I refused to let fall.

​"Are you okay, hon?" she asked, her voice full of genuine concern.

​"I don't know. I've never gotten a B before!" I say, my voice coming out a little too harsh, almost like a snap. I immediately winced. "I'm sorry for my tone, Ms. Bri." My heart was beating out of my chest, and the lump in my throat was making it hard to breathe.

​"It's alright, you're just a little overwhelmed. But Kameo, it's only a B," she says. Somehow, her words—meant to comfort me—only made me feel worse.

​"I know, but... I don't get Bs," I said, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand so the unshed tears wouldn't slip out. "Is there any way I can fix this? I'll do anything to get that grade back up."

​"I knew you'd be worried, and I want to let you know that you're a brilliant student. You are often far too hard on yourself. You're doing great, Kameo. For someone your age taking all AP classes, with your grades and your ambitions, you're doing amazing."

​Her hand dropped from my shoulder, and she gave me a small, encouraging smile. "I'm going to go into the classroom now to take attendance. I’ll give you a minute out here to collect yourself. We'll discuss how to handle the grades in a moment."

​"Okay, thank you," I whispered.

​"You're welcome," she said, pausing at the door. "Don't beat yourself up over this. You really are doing amazing, Kameo."

​As she walked into the room and shut the door, the strength left my legs. I dropped down into a squat, letting my face rest in my lap as I stared at the floor tiles. How did I let this happen? How did I let my grades drop? It wasn't even a calculation subject; this was Biology, my favorite subject of all time.

​This was all Greg’s fault.

​The biology test was exactly a week ago. It was a Monday, and I hadn't studied nearly enough because I had been sick all weekend. And why was I sick? Because of f*****g Greg.

​On Friday night, after staying late at the school to study for my biology unit test, I’d finally headed home. I’d gotten so lost in the textbook and the only reason I realized how late it was was because the librarian had started turning off the lights at nine PM. I’d ran out and caught the last bus, but by the time I’d gotten home, it was a few minutes to ten.

​Greg should have just let me in, but he spent those final minutes through the window grilling me on where I’d been. The second the clock struck ten, he had slammed the deadbolt and told me through the door that I’d missed my curfew. He told me to go where I "usually do"—meaning AJ’s house.

​I knocked on the door for fifteen minutes, pleading with him, but he refused to open it. He just sat there in the living room, the TV light flickering against the walls, ignoring me like he always did. It was almost eleven when I finally gave up. The buses to AJ’s had stopped running for the night, so I had no choice.

​I sat on the porch all night, shivering in the dark, until Greg finally opened the door and "woke" me up at seven AM—exactly an hour before my mom got back from her night shift. We live in Manitou Springs; it was 3 degrees out that night, and I’d slept outside in it with nothing but a light jacket.

​I had gotten feverish and sick, and I didn't truly get better until Tuesday. But I tried; I really did. I’d sat at my desk on Monday morning, shivering and sweating, forcing my eyes to stay open just so I wouldn't fail that test. And after all that, I still got a f*****g B.

​I tried to tell my mom what happened, but she wouldn't believe me. Greg was careful; he never did that kind of stuff in front of her. Since she worked night shifts most of the week, she never saw the reality of it. I’d asked her for a spare key, and she told me my 'father' would prefer if I didn't have one. When I asked why, Greg had simply yelled from across the room, "My house, my rules!"

​It wasn't even his f*****g house. It was my mom's. The lease was in her name!

​I stood up, took a deep breath, and wiped my face one last time before letting myself back into the classroom. As I opened the door, I stopped in my tracks. Jax was in the chair next to mine. Not his sister—him. He was smiling at me, tapping the empty seat next to him as if urging me to hurry up.

​"Come in, Kameo," Ms. Bri said. I walked in and took my seat next to him, staring straight ahead and trying carefully not to look into his eyes. He was watching me, the weirdo. I could feel his gaze on the side of my face, and it was doing something strange to my pulse.

​"You okay?" he whispered. My head snapped toward him so fast I was surprised I didn't get whiplash. No one has ever read me that fast except for AJ. I didn't understand how he could do that. Our eyes locked for a second—a short, intense look that made my heart do a nervous little skip. I looked away quickly.

​"I'm fine, thanks," I whispered back.

​"Alright everyone, I graded your tests over the weekend, and it's not looking too good for most of you," Ms. Bri announced, her voice returning to its sharp, professional edge. "But before we get into that, I have a question." Oh, here it comes. "Why on earth are you taking AP Biology?!" she yells, throwing her hands up in the air.

​I forgot to mention: the reason I know I'm Ms. Bri’s favorite is because she was never mean to me. She was only nice to the people she actually liked, and there were only maybe two people she liked in this entire class. Me, and AJ—and saying AJ was a stretch.

​Ms. Brianna Banks was the granddaughter of Arthur Banks, the founder of Hawthorne, and she could pretty much get away with saying anything to anyone. She was a great teacher, but she was also a mean and untouchable one. Who was going to fire her? Martins? Please.

​"Not even a single A!" she snapped, and there it was. The confirmation. I could feel all eyes in the room swiveling toward me. I heard the little gasps and the frantic whispers start up instantly.

​"Not even Hayes?" someone whispered from the back.

​"Damn, the brainiac failed too?"

​"Wow, Hayes is falling off."

​The words flew around the room like stinging insects. I tried to tune them out, but the shame was hot in my chest. I needed a smoke, a walk—anything to take the edge off. My hands started to fidget under the desk.

​Jax noticed my restlessness. "Hey, you're okay," he says reassuringly, his voice a low rumble that only I could hear. "You're like Dexter, right? Even I know that this is just a fluke." Jax whispered that beside me and gave my arm a small, supportive nudge. For some reason, his simple words calmed me better than Ms. Bri’s entire speech had.

​"Thanks," I whispered, giving him my first real, unforced smile of the day. That earned me another one of those bright, blinding grins of his. My stomach did a weird flip, and I had to turn away before I did something embarrassing. My face was suddenly feeling very warm.

​I tuned back into Ms. Bri’s rant. "....And since seventy percent of you failed and have decided to be absolute disgraces to your bloodlines, we'll be doing a little project. For Extra Credit." She turned and picked up a heavy wicker basket from her desk. With the basket in hand, she began to prowl around the room.

​She dropped a stack of plastic planting pots onto each table, along with a bag of seeds and a detailed instruction sheet. "Over the next month, through winter break, you all will be conducting an environmental stress study on four mung bean plants," she said, slamming a planting pot extra hard on the table of a girl who was still whispering.

​"Wow, she's scary," Jax whispered.

​"I know," I whispered back. Honestly? I loved it!

​"You will have a control plant," Ms. Bri continued, "one plant watered with high-sodium water, one watered with water high in caffeine, and one raised in freezing temperatures." She finished distributing the supplies and leaned back against her desk, her hip resting against the edge.

​"The project is not to just plant them and forget about them. The project is to observe and take notes. All through November and until after the winter break, you will make weekly observation notes. You will measure your plants and log the data. Take a photo and log it. Your job is to track growth patterns."

​She smiles then—a smile full of amusement and a hint of cruelty. "It's worth fifty percent of your grade for this semester."

​The room erupted in groans. "What? I thought the midterm was fifty percent of our grade?" Milania Weston asked indignantly.

​"And now it's only worth thirty percent. Your testing grades are worth twenty percent—which, for most of you, is already terrible—and your plant baby is worth fifty." She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, I'm giving you all an opportunity. If you manage to do this project well enough and perform on the midterms, you could walk away from this class with a final B for the semester. And those with high testing grades could actually end with a final A. So, please... it's one project."

​"It's over a month, Ms. Bri!" Kevin yelled—the same dumbass who couldn't maintain a 3.0 to save his life.

​"Then don't do it and fail the fu... freaking class!" she snaps. She put her glasses back on and looked over the room. "Whoever you're sitting with right now is your partner for this project."

​My heart stopped. No. No, no, no. I was supposed to be avoiding Jax, not spending over a month raising a biological "baby" with him. I looked around frantically, but everyone was already paired off with people they actually liked. I couldn't ask to switch partners now, not after the mood Ms. Bri was in.

​My eyes searched for AJ, but the second I saw him, I knew he was a lost cause. He was seated next to Lyn. She had her arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders, and AJ, the b***h, looked absolutely smitten. There was no way AJ would be willing to swap places with me, and I was pretty sure Lyn wouldn’t agree to it either; she seemed just as content where she was.

​Fuck. My plans for a quiet, Jax-free semester were officially dead.

​"So," Jax said as I turned back to look at him. He had that stupid, gorgeous smirk firmly in place as he leaned into my space. "Are you the mommy or the daddy?"

​Fuck my life!