She opened the fridge to grab a carton of milk and poured herself a glass. “A little?”
He frowned, took a bite out of the tofu, and after two seconds immediately asked, “Want to go out for dinner instead?”
“Yeah.” She put the glass away. “That sounds like a plan.”
“Okay, put away your things first and I’ll clean up.”
She did as she was told. As she did, she wondered why her father had to pick that particular recipe. He wasn’t exactly a bad cook. In fact, he was the reason why she managed to eat a ton of different dishes in the first place.
Still, mapo tofu? The only person who could perfect it was her mom, and she couldn’t even remember the last time they had it.
She glanced at her dad and wondered if he still missed her as much as she does.
She shook her head.
Ridiculous. Of course he does.
She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for him. While she was still in her denial phase, he was already back on his feet, all while he worked hard to raise her on his own. Even though she knew it was a parent’s responsibility to take care of their kids, Aria knew that she made it much more difficult.
“Aria, are we going?” her dad called out from down the stairs.
“Yeah, I’m coming!” she replied and immediately went downstairs so they could head out.
Having dinner with her dad was a nice change of pace. In what felt like the first time in ages, they were able to sit down in a nice restaurant, and have a solid meal together.
She missed it. They used to always have dinner together without fail. Aria could even envision her mom at the table with them. If she were here, she would share stories about her day, while her dad silently criticize her food. Her mother of course, would then scold him in return for not being grateful enough.
But things are different now.
Time didn’t stand still, and they couldn’t go back to the way things were.
They had to keep moving on.
***
She didn’t realize how quickly the weekend flew by until she was facing the dreaded Sunday vibes. Aria wasn’t in full-on panic mode just yet, but maybe in a few hours she would be. Her English essay was almost done, but this was the easiest bit of the workload. She wasn’t exactly the greatest at the subject, but she knew it enough to get a good score.
“Honors English, honors history, honors chemistry, honors physics, honors biology, college-level precalculus,” she whispered to herself as she looked at her planner, and tried to figure out which assignment she wanted to knock out next.
History would take the longest because she would have to make labor intensive notes. Physics wouldn’t be too bad because it was just an extension of math. Mathematics would be quick until she touched anything beyond SOH-CAH-TOA, and, biology was all just memorization.
Then there was chemistry.
Oh, for the love of God, chemistry, and not just any chemistry—honors chemistry. It’s honestly the single class where she would accept the term ‘C’s get degrees’.
Aria knew it in her heart and in her head that there would be no way for her to fully comprehend chemistry, but in order to get into a decent university, she would need to take the class.
She needed to do this.
She needed to get it done.
At least, that’s what she told herself when she resigned herself to the assigned chemistry set. Still, the lesson last Friday wasn’t all that bad. If the sophomores could do it then so could she. Besides, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.
What an overestimation.
It took her half an hour to puzzle out the first two problems, and she had another eight to go. Her brain was practically doing mental gymnastics just to even figure out what the hell the questions were asking, and she had to search up countless times on the internet just to even paraphase the words before she could actually start solving the stupid problem.
It wasn’t even noon yet and she already had a headache.
This was a mistake.
Aria should’ve done history first.
Not six minutes later, her phone buzzed at her side, and she quickly reached out to open her messenger app.
“Wanna hang out?’–10:44 AM
It was Mira.
“I have homework’–10:45 AM
‘Class?’–10:45 AM
‘Classes.’–10:46 AM
‘Gross’–10:48 AM
‘IK’–10:48 AM
Maybe she was stalling, but a mini break wouldn’t hurt.
‘Chem is bullsh*t’–10:49 AM
‘Chems not that bad’–10:50 AM
‘Help me?’–10:51 AM
‘Nvm, see you Mon’–10:52 AM
‘Traitor.’–10:52 AM
Aria huffed in annoyance as she set her phone back down. The stupid chem set wasn’t going to finish itself.
***
Monday rolled around and her morning went by pretty quickly. Her English class was a success, math was alright, history was great, but chemistry had slowly became her archnemesis.
By lunch time, she sat next to Mira, Adrian, and Nick, while she analyzed the red marks on her paper.
How could she be this bad at chemistry? Honestly, what wasn’t clicking?
“Hey, are you okay?” Adrian whispered.
“No,” she admitted and pursed her lips. “Chemistry’s kicking my ass.”
“It can’t be that bad,” he said as he tried to comfort her.
She shook her head. “It’s bad.”
“What’s bad?” Mira tuned in to the conversation.
“My relationship with chemistry,” Aria admitted with a huff.
Mira reached over and grabbed her paper. Her eyes widened when she looked at the marks.
“Wow . . . how?” she finally said.
“I don’t know,” Aria groaned.
“How could you mess up glucose?” Nick asked after he checked out the paper to which she simply gave him a blank look.
“Maybe you should get a tutor for chemistry,” Mira
