The Tables Have Turned

Chapter 8

Bang!

My forehead hit the table and I let out a sigh. That is when I noticed that everyone stopped talking. I looked up and saw all my classmates along with Mr. Jack staring at me weirdly. I smiled sheepishly and they laughed.

“What’s wrong Hailey?” Mr. Jack asked, clearly amused.

“I just can’t understand anything,” I said honestly.

“Hmm,” he said with a thoughtful look on his face “How about I assign someone to tutor you?”

I opened my mouth to reply but then closed it to think better of my decision. I have a bad habit of talking and making decisions without thinking beforehand. Most of the time I end up regretting my decisions so now I’m trying to fix that problem by setting the pros and cons before replying.

This time, the pros of having a tutor outweighed the cons so I nodded and said, “That would be great.”

 “Okay, let’s see,” Mr. Jack said, taking out his grade book. He scanned the list of names before replying.

“Alex? You’re my best student. Would you please tutor Hailey?” Mr. Jack asked. I turned around to look at Alex and I felt hurt when his eyes flashed with irritation. Of course he didn’t want to tutor me. He hates me. And here I was, thinking that he was my friend again. Some cuts are hard to heal and I have to deal with it. It was my fault anyway.

“Um I have basketball practice on Mondays and Fridays after school,” Alex said; making my gaze drop. If it were any other student, anyone other than me, he would’ve agreed because he was Alex—the guy who’s always ready to help. Yet, I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be around me or help me.

“That’s okay,” Mr. Jack said, oblivious to Alex’s reactions “You can tutor her on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays after school. Three days a week is enough. And if she needs more you can do it over the weekend.”

“Um…” Alex trailed off uncertainly and I looked away. I wished I knew someone else was good at math to tutor me, someone other than Alex because he clearly didn’t want to help me.

 “Okay,” Alex finally sighed because really he didn’t have a choice.

“Thank you, Alex,” Mr. Jack said “You two decide where to meet after school and you’ll study for two hours every day.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, looking down at my copybook to avoid seeing Alex’s look.

I wished Chase and Emily were good at math. They would’ve helped me but they barely understand. I wasn’t sure if the whole tutoring thing was good or bad. Seeing Alex even more will make our relationship better or worse? He might hate me even more because he’ll keep on remembering what I did to him or he’ll slowly accept me again when he sees that I’ve changed. I really hoped it would be the latter.

The math period was dragging. Seriously, it wasn’t ending! I looked at my watch at least ten times in the past five minutes which seemed like an hour!

We were now solving an equation that had a lot of numbers and letters. Each person was trying to solve it on his own before we correct it.

I was so happy and surprised when I reached a final answer.

“Anyone found the answer?” Mr. Jack asked.

“X is equal to seven over two,” I exclaimed proudly, with a huge smile on my face. I was finally able to solve a math equation! It felt so good knowing the answer. Maybe I don’t need a tutor after all.

“Um no, that’s not it,” Mr. Jack answered and my face fell. Mariah started chuckling and Chase joined her. The answer turned out to be thirty two.

I definitely need a tutor.

Finally, the bell rang and I immediately stood up and stretched my legs. I closed my book and copybook and put them in my cubby.

“Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you,” I heard someone sing. I turned around and saw Kristen singing. A few girls joined her and I watched them sing, a smile on my lips. This happens a lot in our class. Everyone likes to sing and everyday one of them would start singing some song and the rest would join in.

“Once more, you opened the door and you’re here in my heart and my heart will go on and on,” I joined them as well and soon all the girls were singing. The guys were too proud to sing such a song. Stupid boys.

“Let’s go watch the movie in 3D all together,” Kristen suggested when we finished singing.

“Yes!” All the girls squealed excitedly and we started planning when to go.

“You are so girly,” Paul told us and I raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re going to watch ‘Titanic’ and then you’re going to start crying. It’s just a movie,” He said, rolling his eyes and the rest of the guys agreed.

“Yeah,” Chase added “And you already know that he will die.”

“You guys are just saying that to have an excuse for not watching the movie with us because it makes you cry too,” I said, smirking at the guys as the girls agreed and laughed at them.

“We are not!” They screamed, offended.

“Prove it,” I said, my smirk growing “I dare you all to come with us and watch the movie on Saturday.”

“Okay!” They said, indignantly.

“We’ll prove to you that this silly movie doesn’t make us cry!” Josh said and I remembered what Emily said about liking him. I’ll invite her and I’ll make sure he sits next to her. I almost laughed at myself. I already started planning the whole thing.

“We’ll see,” I answered. At least a few will cry, right? It’s ‘Titanic’ for crying out loud!

“No matter how many times I watch it, I’ll always cry,” Bridget, a really quiet girl, said. I barely hear her talk in class.

“I’ll sit next to you and comfort you,” Alex said, winking at her. She blushed and I felt my heart break slightly. Every time he flirts with someone I feel the same. I know I don’t have the right to be jealous or feel hurt but I just do.

I didn’t let it show, though. Instead, I laughed with the rest of the class.

“You’re so red now,” Mariah told Bridget and the blushing girl scowled.

“You know I can’t stop it!” Bridget said and they laughed. I did notice that she blushes a lot. Seriously if someone says ‘hi’ she blushes. It’s so funny. Thank God I wasn’t like that. I hate blushing.

“It’s all because of my charm,” Alex said, smirking and I rolled my eyes. He’s so cocky but aren’t they all?

Ms. Katy then came in, stopping our conversation. We all sat in our places as the Economics period started.

Why did our Economics period pass so fast while math was endless? I love Economics, that’s why. Math on the other hand was pure torture. And the worst part is that I had math period every single day. Thank God Mr. Jack was fun. It would’ve sucked if my teacher was annoying. Now that I think about it, all of our teachers were okay. I liked them all. Sure some teachers could have been better like Mr. Papadakis who was really loud but he made me laugh so his hour passed fast. This school was pretty awesome.

When lunch time came, we all sat outside because the weather was warm for an autumn day. We were around twelve people sitting together. Some were from Emily’s class and the ones I knew were Emily, Chase, Paul, Alex, Josh, Mariah, Carson, and Kyle. I smiled slightly when I noticed Josh and Emily sitting next to each other. They would make a really cute couple.

I took out my sandwich, prayed silently, and then started eating.

“You pray before eating too? Did Chase and Emily force you to?” Kyle teased. He didn’t have a really good relationship with God because he kept on doubting.

“No,” I replied “I’ve been doing that ever since I was five.”

“That’s a long time,” he pointed out.

I shrugged.

“Do you pray at other times too? And go to church?” He inquired.

“Of course,” I answered.

“Why?” He asked me.

I stayed silent for a bit. I wasn’t hesitating; I was just remembering my parents. They used to pray a lot and they taught me everything I know about Christianity.

“Because God is the one who loves me the most and He is the one next to me the whole time,” I replied, trying my best to explain to him the reason. God is just so… Amazing. He loves every single one of us even if we hurt Him every day, and He never leaves us alone. He is always here. He knows what’s best for us and He tries His best to make our lives good.

“How do you know He exists? How did He prove His existence to you?” Kyle questioned.

“I’ve been through a lot in the past few months, Kyle. At first, I was angry. I was angry at Him. I kept on asking myself how He could do this to me. Didn’t He care? Didn’t He love me? Wasn’t He there? I spent two weeks without praying and without going to church. It was horrible but I wasn’t planning on praying again. But I knew; I knew He was there and I knew it wasn’t His fault. I just wanted to blame someone. But one day, my weakest day, I decided to pray again and when I did, everything became better. I’m not saying my life became full of rainbows and unicorns; it was still sad and depressing but it was better. I had new people in my life and I was given a new beginning. Even if that ‘new life’ missed the most important elements, it was much better than I thought it would be and for that, I’m grateful.”

I got lost in the conversation that I didn’t notice that all of the twelve people were silent and listening to me. Oh God, this is not good.

See what I meant by talking without thinking?

It was silent for a while and I raked my brain to find something else to say, something to change the subject.

I couldn’t come up with anything because my thoughts kept travelling to those horrible two weeks.

To the incident…

To my parents.

Suddenly, Chase – who was sitting next to me—took my hand and squeezed it, as if sensing my discomfort.

“When I found out that I was adopted,” Emily started and I gave her a grateful smile for shifting the attention to her “I felt shattered. Everything was a lie. My own brother wasn’t really my brother. And just like Hailey, I blamed it on God. But Chase helped me see the truth. I shouldn’t be angry at God; on the contrary, I should be thankful. He gave me the people I call my family and I know that they loved me more than my real parents would’ve loved me. Even if we’re not blood related, we are still a family.”

I didn’t think that our break time will turn out to have such a deep, emotional conversation. Oh well I’m glad it did. It’s nice to have conversations like that from time to time.

“Maybe I should try to pray some times,” Kyle said quietly, looking at me and I smiled.

“You won’t regret it Kyle, I promise. Just give it a try,” I answered and he nodded, convinced.

I felt proud of myself. I really like it when I open people’s eyes to see God’s love. God is always there next to us, giving us signs, and sometimes we overlook them or simply ignore them but when we see them, our relationship with God, our father, changes for the best.

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