The Scholar (Snapshot, from Making Shapely Fiction)

Kayleigh was on the verge of tears as she paged through her Kaplan books for the third time that day. She pressed the palms of her hands against her face and breathed deeply for a moment. Her hands felt worn against her smooth, pale skin. She was horrified. There was no way to get out of this; everything depended upon it. The words stared back at her mercilessly. Tears were forming in the recesses of her sinuses. She really didn't care about the slope-intercept form of an equation, or the meaning of the word "quizzical". But she sighed and got back to work. Her sister Marla was counting on this. Now that she had paid for all of her testing materials and workbooks, Kayleigh couldn't let her down.

Two years later, in a small, cluttered apartment, Kayleigh pored over her Calculus II textbook with a similar expression of fear and hopelessness. The class had seemed so important in September. Now, it was a barrier. Now, she started to feel fragile, like she could break at any moment. She wrestled with the four-inch-thick text, searching for a nonexistent meaning. Then, the memory of the disappointment and melancholy in Marla's face drifted into her consciousness. She couldn't stand to see that expression once more. The way Marla looked after she had announced her SAT scores was the only thing keeping her up late into the night.

On graduation day, she stood slumped over, a shell of her old self, unable to comprehend the weight of her accomplishment. Marla was in the audience, smiling up at her with wide eyes, cheering her on. Kayleigh felt herself drifting farther and farther away from the world as she watched herself grab her stage diploma and float across the platform with a blank, lifeless expression.

Marla approached her afterwards, with Kayleigh still dressed in her cap-and-gown. "I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy you made it this far." Kayleigh looked at her with an almost-empty expression as weightless tears welled up in her pale blue eyes. What do I do now? She thought to herself, unable to produce any words from her trembling lips.