Chapter 1
Peter was, by all accounts, a genius. His schedule was packed tight with AP and honors classes, he even gave up his lunch period to have room in his schedule for photography amongst his “more important” electives.
From freshman year he had been told to make himself “marketable” for colleges, sometimes flat out, sometimes subtly but mostly they were slipped into conversation as little veiled threats “Do you think MIT will accept you with that GPA” “Pete, maybe if you weren’t so lazy, you’d get more scholarship opportunities”
Peter was a science kid, ask him the monomer of DNA he could rattle off an answer in one second flat. He was good at all his other classes, but they didn’t just come to him in the was science did, when he was in middle school and everyone’s classes were at the same level everything came down easy to him, even when placed in the “gifted” program he didn’t have to study. Most of the time he could just show up to class, pay minimal attention and he would come home with averages in the high nineties.
In his freshman year of high school he had taken AP world, a social studies class. He had taken a pre-AP class eighth grade, the year before and he felt he was well equipped to handle the year. As the class began his teacher walked him through how she would “hold their hand” through the first two quarters and gradually build them up to real AP level. Peter could’ve laughed, another year of being able to breeze through a year without even creasing the spine of his textbook. But, of course in the beginning of the year you had to give some effort, so for their first chapter assignment he planned out how he would spread the task over a few days so it didn’t take too much time.
The first night he opened the book and it felt like he was reading hieroglyphics. The words made no sense he was barely able to stumble his was through the first five questions. The rest of the week he pushed the work back as far as he could and by the time he took his quiz he came home with a ripe sixty five. Well at least he passed. He would study harder next time he told himself. And then, he didn’t.
He didn’t study harder for the next quiz
or the one after that
or the one after that
or the one after that
and then the first marking period was over and report cards were out and his average in the class was a whopping seventy eight. And Tony was mad, telling him how “he could only pull so many strings to get him into MIT” and “Kid, you’re supposed to be smart, what happened”. And May was mad telling him how “he’s better than this, he’s supposed to be better than this, he needs to be better than this” and Peter knew she was right, and he knew May had high hopes for him to be able to do what she hadn’t been able too.
So Second quarter he tried harder, a few days before the quiz he read the entire chapter answered all of the study questions. He even made himself a quizlet. And then he took his quiz and all hope that was inside of him died. He got it back and the grade was a beautiful, 50. His teacher even told him that she had been “lenient” with the answers that she marked correct. And Peter went to the bathroom and cried.
It was so much easier to accept the bad grades when he hadn’t actually tried. “Yeah I got a twenty, but I didn’t even know what the topic was before the quiz was handed out”. Now he had to live with the knowledge that he had worked, and tried and still was only able to get half of the possible points.
May had seen how hard he was working and when he got the quiz back she asked him how it went. When he confided the horror of his bad grade in her she sat for a moment, then chewed him out. Calling him lazy, telling him that maybe if he didn’t spend all his time on his cell phone or “out” he would’ve actually studied. Peter lost it. “actually studied” he yelled “I actually studied for almost a week”. May just sat and gave him a look that basically told Peter that he was a disappointment. So Peter left.
He took his suit and went out only stopping swinging when he couldn’t even remember what the ground felt like against his feet. He sat on top of an apartment building, and he just thought for a minute. Maybe he was a disappointment? Nothing’s ever good enough for May. Nothing Matters. Somewhere along his distorted line of thought he desired that he needed to cut. He had started in the seventh grade and stoped sporadically. Sometimes he had a reason sometimes he didn’t, he had been clean for at least three months. That didn’t matter for him though as he sat and thought. He eventually grabbed a razor that he hadn’t even remembered grabbing from his bedside drawer. He cut. And it’s not like a movie it doesn’t feel “good”, he was like a junkie he needed his release, as he did it his craving only deepened and as did the cuts along his thighs. He didn’t cry. He didn’t have any tears left in him he almost didn’t even feel anything.
As he decided to go home he started to reason with himself. He also started to regret what he had done. He now had to try and start his clean streak again and it was always hardest for him to stop after a relapse it was like once he got a taste he couldn’t stop, he really was an addict.
He slowly crawled into his window, so not to wake May, that was the last thing he needed right now. He took off his suit, put on his pajama pants and set his 5:30 alarm for the following night. His last thought before he fell asleep was, he’ll have to do his Bio homework would have to get done between classes the following day.