The Problem with Forever

She placed her fork on her plate, next to the waffle crumbs. Her plate was otherwise clear. Mine looked like a syrup lake. “Actually, a Mr. Santos contacted us.”

I closed my eyes.

“We both spoke to him,” Carl added, and the waffle I’d so recently shoved down my throat turned sour. “He explained you had an issue yesterday in class during an exercise in public speaking.”

Opening my eyes, I lowered my fork. I was so no longer hungry. And I was so... I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable.

“He said that another classmate spoke up for you, said you were feeling ill and that’s why you left,” Carl continued. “Now, he also told us it was Rider who covered for you.”

Oh, God.

I wanted to crawl under the table.

“We’ll talk about that in a moment.” Rosa held up a hand, silencing Carl. “You weren’t feeling ill yesterday, were you?”

Lying would probably be better than throwing my failure onto the table in front of us, but I shook my head. Silence stretched out, and I pressed my lips together as I shifted my gaze to my plate. They had to be so disappointed. One week into school and they’d already gotten a call concerning me.

“It’s okay.” Rosa reached over, placing her hand on my arm. I looked up. “Carl and I expected there were going to be some bumps in the road. We knew speech class wasn’t going to be easy. You knew that, too.”

She was right. That didn’t make admitting my failure any easier.

“The school knows,” Carl said, drawing my attention.

“Knows...knows what?”

Folding his arms on the table, he leaned forward. “We spoke to the administration back when you were registered, letting them know you might have some difficulties.”

My jaw nearly hit the table. “You...did what?”

“We didn’t go into detail, Mallory, and we only met with your teachers, the principal and Mrs. Dehaven, one of the counselors,” Rosa explained. “It’s just so they could keep an eye on you, just in case anything happened that we needed to know about.”

Only everyone! Oh my God. Skin tingling and itchy, I sat back in the chair. I stared at them without really seeing them. All I could see was all these people knowing about my difficulties the whole week when this was supposed to be a fresh start.

“They needed to know,” Carl said.

That was stated like it was a fact, and I begged to differ. My tongue untangled.

“We worked out a deal with Mr. Santos during yesterday’s call,” he continued, and my tongue went right back to the roof of my mouth. “He completely understands, Mallory. I want you to know that. He understands how difficult it will be for you to ge

t in front of that class and speak.”

I might’ve stopped breathing.

“Speech is a requirement for graduation, but they’ve made concessions for students before,” Rosa said, her voice soft. “And Mr. Santos was more than willing to do so in this case.”

I stiffened. “But—”

“He agreed that instead of you having to give your speeches in front of the class with the rest of the students, you’ll have a set time to give them only to him,” Carl explained, and I might’ve been having an out-of-body experience. “That way you’ll be able to keep up with the assignments, but on your terms.”

Rosa patted my arm. “This is good news.”

“This...” I shook my head, at a loss. “Everyone...will know.”

Carl frowned.

“The kids in my class will know...that I can’t do it and that I’m getting something...they aren’t. They all...have to stand up there and I don’t? I need to...do it.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Honey, what you need to do is pass the class.”