Work Text:
Cool. Confident. Knowledgeable. Charismatic.
That’s how Ben felt when the mock trial started. He remembered his hands being steady as he buttoned up his blazer, his heart light as he’d winked at Aneesa. He remembered his own voice, powerful, as though speaking from an entity larger and more alive than his usually-heavy chest.
But now he was all racing mind, shaking hands, and fingers moving up and down the sides of his desk.
“I lost?” Ben heard his voice come from a different place outside of Ben’s mind. Unlike the other entity, this one was small. Stranded. Lost. “I lost in an academic competition?”
“Yeah, ya did,” Mr. K responded, as though this situation were perfectly normal.
As though it were expected.
Ben felt his face warm and tore his eyes from Mr. K. He thought that everyone else was staring at him. Maybe they were all laughing at him, the boy whose entire existence went into his work. The boy who failed anyway.
Maybe they were happy to see him taken down a peg. His cheeks got hotter, as though he’d been slapped.
Ben’s chest hole opened up as he turned to talk to Aneesa, to ask her what had happened, but he barely heard her response through ringing ears. But when the bell rang and Aneesa stood up and left with a kiss on his cheek, Ben felt his legs move without him. “Mr. K,” he said, aware that he was moving up to the front of the classroom. “Why exactly did he lose?” The voice that Ben heard was louder than he expected, angrier than he expected. More resigned than it should be. “Was it just because of Aneesa and her notecards? Or did I do something, too?”
If he hadn’t done anything, he didn’t deserve this.
Mr. K let out a long-suffering sigh. “Ben, it really isn’t that big a deal. You’re still getting an A.”
Ben heard his own voice speak. Internally, he cringed at the fact that it came out as a whine. “But was it my fault at all? Even a little bit,” Ben asked again.
Mr. K rolled his eyes, and Ben felt ridiculous. He knew he sounded ridiculous, with that voice that didn’t belong to him. “No, Ben. It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t Aneesa’s, either. Sometimes you just lose. The other team made the sounder argument.”
Ben felt himself roll his eyes at that one. Fabiola’s argument was strong? He barned out a short laugh before continuing, unraveling. “All Fabiola Torres did was weave some words together, make them sound pretty, and talk in a comically intense voice. I could do that, too, if I were more focused on appearances than substance.”
“Come on, Ben,” Mr. K said, and Ben felt that awful heat in his face again. “This is ridiculous. It was just a classroom activity! It was fun, it was interesting. You did good, they did good. It’s really fine.”
It’s not fine. “I can’t have lost.” I need to do better. “I can’t lose again. What can I do better next time?”
“You did a perfectly good job, Ben. You clearly read the book, understood the themes, put together an argument. You knew the specifics of the time period. You even knew what witness examination would look like. You can put a gold-star sticker in your planner for today, bro. Why are you so upset about this?”
Why did he sound so calm? “I never lose in academic competitions,” he said, his voice faltering slightly. It was once again his own. Unfortunately, he wasn’t glad of it. He was dimly aware that Mr. K was still talking, telling him something supposedly comforting about everyone losing sometimes. Ben barely heard it. He could feel his face burning.
“Okay,” he eventually said in that small voice that was actually his. He forced lightness, but he could hear himself failing. “I understand. Thank you.” He hoped that this last part had contained some semblance of dignity as he gathered himself, cheeks aflame, and walked out of the room.
Ben was very aware of himself in a way that he never truly was as he sat down in an abandoned vestibule. Thank God he didn’t have any more classes today. His limbs felt big, clunky- it took a lot of effort to move them. Ben was used to feeling like something outside of his body, but this was… well, this was more unsettling. He was too big for himself; he was too heavy. He was inside himself but didn’t fit.
He stared out the window, willing himself back to normal.
It didn’t work.
Slower than he thought was possible, Ben reached toward his backpack. The feeling of the straps under his fingers was comforting; Ben allowed himself a few moments of stimulation before pulling his notebook out of his bag. Gatsby Mock Trial, it read in his loopy handwriting. And under it…
5 pages of handwritten notes.
Bullet points of the key points in the book, highlighted quotes.
Ideas on arguments to make, URLs to websites scrawled on paper just in case he lost the digital bookmark.
No matter what he did, would his performance always be lacking?
Would he always be lacking?