Rough Guy: Providence Prep High School Book 3 by Allen Jacob

Author:Allen, Jacob
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Present Day

“My parents are rude and condescending to me.”

Mr. Smith had come in just moments after my confession, leaving a sort of cliffhanger to our conversation I needed to fill. I worried that if I just left the words hanging and didn’t elaborate on what I meant, Nick would find a way to twist what I’d said and use it to mock me even more.

But to my surprise, when we left detention, Nick patiently waited for me outside, didn’t hurry away, and seemed to listen very closely as I spoke.

“I’m the only child in my family,” I said. “I don’t know if that was on purpose or not. But what it does mean is that they can focus all of their efforts on me, sometimes much to my chagrin. I don’t have any room to breathe, because they are always on me. It’s like if I fail to do something perfectly, if I’m off by a single point on a test, they don’t look at the things I did right to get a 99. They ask what I failed to do to get the hundred.”

I shook my head, laughing at how utterly real that was. If anything, I had understated how driven my parents were to see me be perfect. Most kids exaggerated the burden their parents put on them, but for me, there was nothing like that. It was work, work, and more work.

“Then, I come here, and the environment my parents put me in doesn’t prepare me at all for Providence Prep. My teachers love me, sure, but I’d like to be a teenager once and a while. I’d like to hang out with Emily and Jackie. Not you.”

“I get it.”

“I just want to be an eighteen year old girl with friends sometimes. But I know what I am. I know I’m awkward. I’m blunt. I’m not a jackass like you, but I can be too on point.”

“Like just then,” Nick said with a smirk.

“Yeah, exactly. So… yeah, I know I’m the nerd, the class dork. I just accept it and move forward.”

“I got you,” Nick said.

We got outside the school grounds and headed toward our cars, which were parked only six spaces apart. When we got to my Accord, though, Nick didn’t seem in any rush to move on. Instead, he leaned against my car, curious to hear more.

“At this point, I don’t really care that I am that way,” I said. “It’s not like something’s going to magically change in the next three months. I just want wherever I go to be like me, you know? Show me an arts class at Harvard where people name-drop historical artists and movements without being called a dork. Show me a history class where we can debate the influence of different eras on the rise of fascism in the early 20th century. I don’t get that here. But I sure hope I can there.”

Nick, still leaning against my car—something I found myself strangely not as bothered by as I would have guessed—nodded, put his hand on his chin, and smiled.

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