andreakessler

[andreakessler]

"How helpful," she blurted out in a sarcastic tone before she could stop herself. It wasn't her fault that this little shit had her annoyed. All she had did was ask him nicely if he knew what was going on in class, and he could've at least responded in a slightly more polite tone even if he didn't know what they were supposed to. Andrea could already tell that she wasn't going to like working with a rude arse like him. Heck, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Reids hadn't paired them up, she would've probably graduated high school never bothering to talk to him even if they shared the same History class. She didn't associate herself with people like him.

Without waiting for him to invite her to sit down, she plopped down on the seat beside him. If she was going to have to work with him, then she might as well just go ahead and establish some expectations that she had from him. Andrea wasn't stupid—she knew already that Dylan would probably do very minimal work, but she wanted to make sure that he'd know that she was not going to tolerate him not doing anything, especially because this was a History presentation. As much as she enjoyed the subject, it was difficult as hell to research everything and she desperately wanted a good grade for this. She could only achieve that if she had a little bit of help. "Look, I don't know about you, but I want to get good grades, okay? This is gonna contribute to a huge portion of our grade, you know. Don't you care about your grades at all?" She knew that her last question was probably something that she probably didn't really need to ask, but he had to at least care to some extent, right? He would have to repeat the year if he didn't meet the school's requirements, and no one wanted that.

"You can act as if you don't care at all about how this presentation goes, but we both know that if you fail it completely, then might have to repeat senior year while we all graduate, and that would be miserably, wouldn't it?" she went on, an idea forming in her head. It was a risky idea, but Andrea figured that this might be worth a shot. After all, it was probably the only thing that might make Dylan do some work in this assignment. "So you can either help me out find out what this assignment is about and help me work on it once we do that, or you can not do any work at all and I'll do the same. If you pick the latter, then you're failing for sure. I mean, I'll probably flunk the rest of History too if I do bad on this, but at least I'll still pass. It's your choice, really."

a catastrophic history ➺ andrea & dylan

It wasn’t that Dylan was looking forward to anything that would come out of the bell chiming to alert delighted students and relieved teachers that class was over. He couldn’t even remember what he had to do or where he had to go after this. Not that he cared but some teacher’s had it out for him more than others and at least if he showed up and just slept at the back of the room they had one less thing to complain about. Dylan lifted his head from the make-shift cushion of his folded arms and turned to the dude beside him that could only be described as his best friend. Not that they were close or anything but they could spend time together, help each other out with some pot and not want to bruatally murder one another. “Hey man – what do we have after this?” He didn’t bother to whisper, Ms. Reid’s had long since labelled him as a dud and didn’t even scold him anymore. They were on good terms really. As long as he kept quiet for the most part, she wouldn’t write him up a detention slip.

“Extra after school English with Mrs. Pritchards because you’re failing, you stupid twat,” was the ginger’s reply with a lazy, one-shouldered shrug. Dylan grinned in response and rested his head back down. There was no need to even try to pretend with her. She was well past the recommended age for retirement and pretty much blind as well as deaf. All she ever did was squint at ‘King Lear’ and attempt to read it out loud to a wild group of students who spent the period throwing paper airplanes around the classroom and drawing crude pictures of male genitalia on the whiteboard. “You’re failing too, you equally as stupid dipshit. Wanna ditch and roll a joint on the pitch?” “Idiot you know there’s a girl’s soccer match on. It’s all the school’s been bloody talking about. I mean, I’d be happy to go if it was volleyball but is nowhere near as hot.”

Dylan grunted, sudden happiness gone at Will’s rejection. He went back to half tuning into what the history teacher was droning on about and keeping an eye on the clock as the little hand ticked closer and closer to semi-freedom. Might as well just go home. Not like anyone would know he came back early – he got back to the house before anyone else anyway. Maybe he could start the art homework he was assigned. It was really the only subject he somewhat gave a fuck about. Not that he was good at drawing, it was just that it was the one class that was more liberal. There wasn’t one way of going about things. It was entirely open to interpretation. Plus, Mr. Reynolds was the only teacher who seemed to like him for some reason that was completely unknown to the young man.*

The voice of Ms. Reids yelling at some poor idiot who couldn’t even pretend to be listening grabbed his attention. What was that girl’s name again? Andi? Something along those lines anyway. Some sort of soccor big-shot. The team captain anyway. Annoying as fuck a lot of the time too, or at least in the classes they shared though thankfully there were only a handful. And of course she was paired with him for this stupid project Ms. Reids had been droning on about for the last half an hour. The teacher probably considered it a punishment fit for not paying attention. Probably was too. He would feel sorry for her if he cared enough to. She’d be doing all the work, that was already decided then and there.

When she came over with her tail between her legs, Dylan’s expression remained perfectly neutral. “Fuck if I know.” He stretched and yawned. “Gotta do a presentation. Or something.”

[andreakessler]

a catastrophic history ➺ andrea & dylan

This class never felt so long before today. But for some reason, Andrea kept glancing at the clock repeatedly during this lesson. It was new to her—to be so impatient about History class ending. Usually History was her favorite class, but at the end of the day, it seemed like soccer still trumped over her favorite subject. She was eager to get to practice today, especially because tomorrow was going to be their first match this season. Andrea glanced at the clock again. It was only halfway through the lesson. She wanted to groan. She usually loved listening to Ms. Reids talk about the ancient Roman civilization, but the only thing that she could focus on right now was soccer formations. She wondered if the 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formation would be more beneficial for tomorrow's game. Andrea mentally drew the play in her head and placed her teammates in their positions as Ms. Reids went on about Roman gladiators in the old days. Natalie as the left winger and Anya as the right one in the 4-3-3 position could work, she thought, trying to picture them on the field.

"Right, Andrea. Do you have any idea what we'll be doing for our next History project, or who your partner will be for this project?" Ms. Reids' voice suddenly jerked her out of her soccer thoughts and back into reality. The History teacher was looking at her with an amused expression, and Andrea's cheeks turned red when she realized that her teacher had caught her zoning out. Abashed, she shook her head and braced herself for Ms. Reids to tell her off. But all she got from the teacher was a chuckle. Ms. Reids lifted her finger to point at someone behind her, and Andrea glanced over her shoulder to see who it was that she was pointing at. To her surprise, it was Dylan Richards—the good-for-nothing lazy arse in her class. She wondered what he had to do with Ms. Reids' question.

"Dylan right there is going to be your partner for this project, Andrea," Ms. Reids went on, as if she could read the question that was flitting in her mind. Andrea's brows rose in shock. Him? Out of all the people in her class, why did he have to be her partner? She had hoped to have someone who was interested in history, and he didn't seem like the part. Well, at least, from what Andrea had gathered, he just wasn't interested in anything. Maybe she was wrong, but based on what she knew about Dylan, he wasn't exactly the ideal project partner. She desperately wanted to ask for a switch or something, but knowing Ms. Reids, that was something that she wasn't going to follow. "I'm sure that Dylan would be able to fill you in on the details of what we are to do for this project. Once you two have figured out a topic, —and this goes for the rest of the class as well—please notify me so that we don't have two pairs taking on the same topic."

Dejected, Andrea nodded her head and picked her bag up, making her way toward Dylan's seat somewhere at the back of the room. She dropped her back beside his desk, raking a hand through her hair. "Hey. So, uh, what are we supposed to do again?"

[andreakessler]