Work Text:
There she was, at the back of the classroom, receiving yet again another disappointing grade. At first she felt numb, as if everything around her was dull. She quietly took in the paper in front of her as her hands were hidden under the table, fingers tangling and untangling in a nervous fret.
She side-eyed her deskmate's paper and saw how much of a higher grade she got. She heard people all around her comparing their marks together, in a sick show of competivness, but still having much greater marks than her. She held her head low as she felt the first tear rolling down her cheek slowly and crashing down on her paper highlighting a word she had written.
A lump had formed in her throat as she heard the others all around her continue with their bantering as if she didn't exist. As if they couldn't see her distress. She was feeling pathetic. Was she ? Probably. At least that's what her brain kept telling her in a vicious spiral spinning around and around in her head. She was beginning to drown in her thoughts of disappointment and self-deprication. She was worthless, a waste of space, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.
Was she being dramatic ? It was just a grade after all. But the pressure was too grand. She was supposed to be the best. She always had been but now it seems that she can't take it anymore. All around her she felt the pressure of her peers to be the best of them. Or was it her brain telling her that she didn't have anything else worthy of being noticed except for her grades? If she wasn't at the top then who was she ? Where was her life going ? What is she supposed to do ?
She felt lost. Lost and scared of her own brain and the pressure it inflicted upon her. Her breath started to quicken as tears poured from her eyes. Her paper was littered with splashes of darkness, her hands were still tangling and untangling times and times over the table as she had tried to stuff the dreaded results out of her vision in order to regain control of her body. Yet she couldn't. Because she was pathetic. Why was she crying, it's as if she wanted the attention of others. That's pathetic. Her brain is still repeating those words like a mantra, a prayer. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. Worthless, worthless, worthless.
Deep down she knew what she had to do to get out of this mental panic. She knew. But she couldn't. She was self-sabotaging and scared of everyone's reaction to her meltdown. She was in the back of the classroom like she was in a far away place in her mind, where no one saw her shutting down the world around her, where everyone forgot her.
She felt a hand on her back but shrugged it off. She didn't need the fake sympathy she knew everyone would show her when inside they're all laughing at her overreaction to what is and will always be just a mark in her year resume.