The English Billionaire

Chapter 14

Emma's POV
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The next morning after I had gotten ready for school and I had gotten a ride from my mom to school I was pretty nervous about seeing and talking to Grace. What if she hadn't made it and it was awkward when we talked about it?

My mom dropped me off at the entrance of the school and I climbed out and walked into the school building just as the first bell rang. Students poured out of the gym doors where all the people who arrive early have to wait and began to speed walk to the hallway where their locker was. I turned quickly into the first hallway trying to avoid the large mass of people that was moving quickly towards me and found my locker. As I opened it and shoved my backpack inside, grabbing the binder that I would need for math, and then shut the door and got out of the way so the person underneath me and beside me could get to their lockers without me in the way.

Rebecca met me on my way to math.

"Brett made it," she said rolling her eyes.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he was super rude about it yesterday," she said with a shrug. "Grace didn't make it though, did you?"

I gave a small nod and she shoved me a little, "No way! That's so cool!"

I flashed her a grin but my brain was scrambling for what I would have to do and say to Grace the next time I saw her. "Did Grace seem super disappointed about not making it?" I asked.

Rebecca shrugged again, "I don't know, Brett was just being such a butt I didn't really notice."

"Oh," I said as we reached the end of the hallway and I turned to head to my math class and she turned the other way to go to hers, "Well, I'll see you in choir." I added and Rebecca gave me a nod and a "bye!" before she turned and walked away.

Brett made it but Grace didn't, just my luck.

--

My choir class had both Rebecca and Grace in it. When I walked through the door, my choir teacher gave me a greeting and I grabbed my folder before sitting in my normal seat in the soprano section. Grace is an alto and when she walked in she flashed me a grin (good news) and, after also grabbing her folder, sat on the other side of the room in the alto section.

Crisis averted.

That is until the bell rang releasing us to lunch.

Grace came up to me and Rebecca and began talking about something random that had happened to her in an earlier class and I was super thankful that she was kind of scatter brained and didn't always remember everything.

That is until we had gotten our food and had walked to our lunch table and sat down.

"Bummer that the results came out yesterday," she said, "Brett was not cool about telling everyone that he had made it, like 'yay, you're so smart, congrats.'" she added sarcastically.

I gave a small laugh and Rebecca shot me a glance.

"Like, why can't he be nice about something for once and not have to brag?" Grace continued, not noticing Rebecca's look.

"Yeah," I responded, taking a bite of my pizza.

"What'd your letter say?" Grace asked. "Jacob's was different than mine so at least they like actually put thought into telling us we aren't as smart as we thought we were."

I was quiet for a millisecond a little hurt that she had expected me to fail.

Rebecca coughed.

"I got accepted." I said looking down at my pizza, the guilt that had built up in my stomach the whole day dissipating, half making my stomach feel like I was going to throw up and the other half not feeling bad at all.

The table was quiet.

"Oh." Grace said then I could hear the almost wounded smile on her face in her tone of, "Congrats, that's exciting!"

Saved by the bell would become my catch phrase because just then the bell rang and I packed up, eating the last bit of food after saying a quick "thanks, sorry you didn't make it, I don't even know how I did."

I almost bolted after we parted ways, very awkwardly mind you, and cursed the next week before the final big test.

How could I study for an even harder test than I had just taken and deal with Grace who now probably hated me and with all the other drama that would go on now that the competition was reaching it's crecendo.

Why was it that I signed up for this competition again?