Chapter Text
Aaron couldn't breathe.
The weight of the paper in his hands felt like 5 tons, as he stared at the 48% marked boldly in red.
A familiar sinking feeling entered his stomach, a feeling of disappointment, anger and fear. A feeling he knew all too well. He forced himself to breathe, scorching his eyes at the blank wall instead of the marked paper.
Aaron had failed.
He knew he wasn't the best at physics, but a 48%? Aaron had spent hours and pulled all-nighters studying for this paper, all of that went to waste. His head slowly started ringing of his mother’s words.
....
His mother’s hand pushed his head down farther into the water, he was gasping trying to make it back to the top.
“Aaron you think you’ll ever make it anywhere with those fucking grades huh?” Pulling his head out of the water and gripping his hair with a fierce hand.
“Don’t you fucking get it!” she screamed into his ear, he could feel blood form at the top of his scalp.
“I had to work my ass off for years to become a nurse, only for me to be fucking fired for doing a bit of cocaine” Mom laughed yet her voice lacked any trace of humour.
“Aaron sweetheart, I need you to work hard for me; you're my child you should help provide for me shouldn't you? You want me to love you, don't you? Then I don't wanna see anything that, not an A+ understood?” She cooed at him, changing her grip to slowly slide through his hair gently.
Mom was always like that, vicious as a tiger ready to strike one moment and the next sweet, motherly and comforting. It was almost impossible to know when she would make that switch, but Aaron liked to think he got quite good at it. He had been reading her mannerisms and actions for the past 10 years after all.
“Understood?” His mother’s voice slowly turned into steel as her grip began to tighten slightly.
“Understood” Aaron repeated with a small smile, his voice still shaky
His mother smiled back “you know I love you, right sweetie? I’m doing this for you”
Aaron slowly nodded as his mother brought him in a tight embrace, the ones he always craved from her “I love you too mom” he replied.
.....
The only thing Aaron could hear was his unstable breathing, his hands gripping his hair so tight, he was surprised there was no blood yet. Tears that he did not allow streamed down his face, as his body started shaking more.
After 10 minutes of scouring on the ground crying his eyes out, and slowly ripping out his hair Aaron calmed down enough to get up. His mother’s words rang in his years “Brat stop fucking crying and go do something about it”
Taking a deep breath he quickly opened his laptop to check his schedule. He has a biology test in 2 days, another physics test at the end of the week and a chemistry test in 3 days.
Stress ran down his spine as Aaron remembered all the new material he had to study for all 3 courses. On top of that, they had a stupid practice match with the Trojans, so Kevin and Dan had them working 5x harder determined to beat them.
It was Tuesday, which meant he had fucking therapy with Andrew tomorrow. Aaron supposed he could just skip it to have more study time, not all of them have a crazy memory like Andrew after all.
Aaron felt a long sigh fall out of him, it was going to be a long week. He would be alright tho, though he handled much worse right? What could go wrong this time?