Work Text:
It was almost four in the morning and Bernard was still awake, just like he had been the past three days. He was hunched over his laptop, trying to finish this damned essay, just like he had been the past three days.
It was a simple essay, just like every other one he had written since middle school. It was about a topic that was fairly interesting too.
So why couldn't he do it?
Bernard had been flipping back and forth between YouTube and Spotify for the past hour, trying to find the video or playlist that he would be able to sufficiently tune out to do his work. And yeah, he could just take his headphones off and do the work without the noise, but the thought of that was unbearable.
It was so stupid.
Bernard had been an excellent student throughout all of middle school, and even before that he had been a shoe-in for the gifted and talented program in elementary school. Bernard had never had to study, never had to think too hard about an assignment, never had to worry about whether or not he would be accepted into collage. School had been so easy.
And yet here he was, struggling to finish an essay.
He knew that high school was going to be harder, and the workload wasn't anything he wasn't completely capable of doing. Yet he was slowly slipping down a slope of procrastination and missing assignments. Bernard loved school, he always had, so why was it becoming so hard? Why now? Why at the very end, when it mattered most?
If he failed now, then he won't get into college. If he didn't get into college then there was no way he'd get the job he wanted. If he didn't get the job he wanted--
He was crying.
Over a school assignment.
Bernard scrubbed at his eyes, forcing the tears to stop. There was no point in crying about it. The essay was due by the end of the week and he was only halfway done.
He just needed to buckle down and do the work.