Chapter 229

My nervousness returned tenfold and no amount of Asher’s shoulder massages, good as they were, were able to calm me down.

“Cynthia?” said the woman at the desk.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Asher hugged me at once. “You can do this. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

I nodded against him. I wanted to stay right where I was, forever.

“Cynthia?” the woman said again, louder. She wouldn’t wait for me. I had to go now.

I backed away from Asher and walked toward the lecture hall. A different faculty member met me at the door and escorted me inside. There, I was handed a test booklet and a pencil, then told some brief rules.

I had to turn my phone off and store it with them. No problem. They also asked me to turn out my pockets and shake out my hair.

“We’re checking for cheat sheets,” she said at my curious look.

I did as she asked.

When they were finally convinced that I had no intention of cheating, they lead me further into the lecture hall. They pointed out a very specific desk in the room. Some other students were scattered around, taking their tests on their own.

I quietly sat where they directed me.

“If you have any questions, raise your hand,” the woman said, “but be aware we will offer no help on the test itself.”

“I understand.”

She nodded and left me.

I closed my eyes a moment, and took a deep breath. I thought of my friends, of their support and their kind words. I imagined them sitting in the seats behind me, cheering me on.

Uplifted, I opened my eyes again. Looking at my desk, I flipped open my test booklet.

The exam took several long hours with no breaks. Once, I did have to raise my hand to ask to use the bathroom. The faculty member looked at me in an annoyed kind of way.

“I’m pregnant,” I said, hoping that would persuade them. It did. One faculty personnel guarded my test booklet, while the other escorted me to and from the bathroom.

When I returned, they left me and I began again.

As I worked, I felt more and more confident. Most of the questions had been directly covered in the material I had gone over with Asher and my friends. The ones that weren’t, I was able to easily figure due to by base knowledge of the topics.

I could do this. Nothing could stop me.

Yet then I reached the literature portion of the exam. The questions that reviewed specific passages I had read were easy. Though writing essays longhand cramped my wrist, I persevered.

Until I reached a more open-ended question at the very end. I checked, flipping forward, but yes, this was the last question.

To be stumped here after doing so well until now felt really unfair.

But the question itself felt like a trap.

It was a freestyle question. The only instruction was to answer with honesty.

It read, Which is more important, your family and loved ones, or your future?

The college’s values had been clear to me for a long time now, ever since what felt like forever ago, when I had called the faculty office and asked if a student could delay the exams because she was pregnant.

The answer had been as clear as if she had slapped me in the face. A student’s problems were their own. The Academy only cared about solutions.

So they likely wouldn’t prefer my honest answer here.

They, as an elite educational institution, would want me to say that I favored personal development and growth over spending time with my family and friends.

It would be so easy to write what I knew they wanted. Everyone else probably wrote the same thing. Even if I didn’t mean it, even if it was a lie, I should tell them what they wanted to hear to earn the best score.

Yet as I placed my pen to paper, I struggled.

I just couldn’t bring myself to lie in such a way. The truth was, I valued my friends, my family, and my love just as much as I did my dreams and my desire to achieve them.

In fact, I would place the needs of my baby first above all else.

The Academy would hate to hear it. I’d surely be penalized.

Suddenly, I didn’t care.

When I pressed my pencil back to the page, I wrote from the heart. I wrote about the value of love, and how it had saved me in my darkest moments. I wrote that friends and family were not weaknesses to be shunned and put down, but strengths that only brought out the best in each other.

I stayed true to myself rather than pander to the Academy. And when I closed my test booklet, finished at last, I felt like I had done the right thing.

I raised my hand for the faculty member. They accepted my booklet, then escorted me out.

Outside, I shielded my eyes from the late afternoon sun. It had been dark in the room and so bright outside now, in comparison.

“There she is!” I heard Nicole yell. Then the sound of rushed footsteps.

“How did it go?” Aimee asked when they were close enough.

I lowered my hand. They were still mostly dark shadows but I could see clearer now.

“Well, I think.”

Nicole and Aimee both hugged me and cheered. Then they stepped back to let Asher fold me into his embrace.

“I’m proud of you,” he told me.

“We don’t know how I did yet,” I replied.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

The group walked me back to the dorm room, where we ordered too much delivery and ate until we felt like bursting.

Aimee and Nicole asked me about the test questions, and I told them what I could remember. They seemed impressed, especially when I told them how I had answered.

Asher sat quietly beside me on the bed, his arm wrapped protectively around my waist. He seemed to enjoy touching me, like he couldn’t get enough. His thumb rubbed against my hip, or he leaned his shoulder into mine. Consistently, he turned into me and peppered kiss after kiss along my hairline.

My friends and I laughed and joked, until my yawn indicated it might be time to call it a night.

I said goodbye to each of them and walked them to the door. When they had gone, I looked back to Asher.

“Something’s bothering you,” he said. He’d always been able to see straight through me. “You didn’t want to tell the girls but they are gone now. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“I know.” I walked closer to him and held out my hands. He easily took them both in his. He ran his thumbs along my knuckles, giving me strength.

“I think I might have failed the exam.”

That startled him and he blinked. “What? But the questions… The way you were talking…”

“I knew most of the questions. I likely tripped up on some, but…” I shook my head. “It really depends on how the scoring is distributed. Asher, I think I botched the very last question.”

“Tell me.”

“It was a freestyle essay. They asked me what was more important, my friends and family or my future?”

He swallowed. “How did you answer?”

“How could I say anything else but the truth? After all, what good is a future if there is no one there to share it with?”

He pulled me forward and I fell into his arms. He kissed the top of my head.

“Are you still proud of me?” I asked.

His answer was quick, “Yes. Now even more than before.”