Bad Influence - popular girl x nerd boy

11- Rome

"The assignment will be a research project surrounding a time period of your choice across world history." The details of the project slip out of my mind, and my attention is lost once she starts repeating the units that we have to choose from.

Lucas is sitting beside me, listening intently to the instructions.

He nods slightly when she walks us through the instructions, his mouth silently forming questions so he can better understand the concept of the project. I try to force myself to listen as well, to focus on the assignment so I can at least pass the class this semester, but the effect wears off in seconds. While my mind is blank, thinking of anything except this class, his is almost energized by the knowledge he's being handed.

Finally, our teacher shuts up, trusting us to use the rest of the class to work on the outlined project.

"Hi, partner," I grin with more joy than I feel. In reality, I am terrified of working with Lucas.

The definition of a good student, Lucas is driven by his grades and works tirelessly in school. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he has never failed a test, never had a missing assignment, or never skipped a single day of school. Which, of course, are the only things I do related to school. No amount of tutors or class changes could fix my problem- they couldn't fix me.

I want to do good in school. God knows it pains me every time my report card calls me a failure, flashing letters low enough to stop me from graduating.

But I can't help it. It doesn't matter how hard I try or how much I want to do better, the second I sit down in a class I wish I could be anywhere else. My mind doesn't even bother to attempt the work anymore, it's become too adjusted to trying and failing.

When I am outside of school it is easy to hope that my grades will improve. Dreams of change haunt my mind and I pretend that it's possible for my slate to be cleared. I fantasize that my brain will be fixed of whatever has stopped me from learning for so long. But the entrance to the school is the border between my dreams and reality. My brain short circuits and I can barely translate my teacher's words from gibberish to English, let alone do the work that they demand from me.

It doesn't help that my shame is public, with all of my classmates knowing that I am failing most of my classes.

I tried to hide it sophomore year, humiliated by the way I would take freshman math while the rest of my friends were working on pre-calculus. But eventually, my classmates saw me for what I am, and the secret of my stupidity was out.

It didn't change a lot, seeing as most people in the party scene don't care about school anyways. However, every time I find myself in a group project, I'm seen as a liability. Deadweight. Something more worthless than any attempt I could offer them. Eventually, they stopped letting me help and refused to let me try to participate.

It makes assignments and grades easier, definitely, but I want to help. I want to prove my intelligence and my skills. A need to prove them wrong has built up in my heart, stemming from a shallow desire to reassure myself that I have worth after all.

My resolve solidifies like concrete. I won't let Lucas see me that way.

Every look of disappointment or annoyance has chipped a corner of my ego, but one from Lucas would absolutely cripple it. I'm not sure why it matters, but I could not stomach his looks of amusement being traded for resentment. His image of who I am being tarnished by my uselessness.

"What time period do you want to do?" I ask him while his eyes remain attached to his computer, a google document being shared between us. "We could do early civilizations? That one's definitely the most interesting." Whether it was the most interesting or the only one I remembered did not matter, I needed to at least act like I knew what I was doing.