Continuous School

The weeks ticked by quickly. The stress and anxiety that was faced leading up to this moment was something that they would hopefully never have to feel again.

"Are we ready?" Owen said to Ethan and Sean as they received the envelope with their results in. "On three…"

"Wait!" Ruby said as she ran in slamming down her envelope. "Wait for the others."

The sweat poured down Ruby"s face as she ran all the way to school in the middle of summer.

Whilst Ruby regained her breath hanging on Owen"s shoulder, Claire and Simon walked in rather happily holding each other"s hands.

"Very outgoing of you," Ethan said.

"Don"t be jealous because no one likes you." Simon retaliated only to get hit by Claire. "Sorry…"

"I don"t care about my results," Claire said. "I"m happy things worked out this way."

"Yeah maybe for you," Ethan said only to be hit by Owen.

"We talked about this," he whispered to Ethan as if he was his child. "Don"t go bullying Simon and Claire just because no one will ever love you."

Ethan looked at Owen with an agreeing smile. He was well aware at this point and wanted to distract himself.

"Alright, shall we open them?" He said only to be interrupted.

"Can we wait for Lily and Kaylee?" Ruby suggested.

"Tsk… fine." Ethan stumped into a random chair and looked around at his fellow cla.s.smates who he never spoke to. Their hearts were trying to escape their chests whilst tears poured down their eyes. The teachers cried for them all. Holding them tightly. The tears of joy that everyone was expelling lowered Ethan"s confidence. He looked at the brown envelope in his hand and thought about opening it to get it over with. He could hear all the cheers that drowned out the disappointed ones.

"Sorry, we are late," Kaylee said snapping Ethan out of his trance.

"It"s no problem." He said joining the group again. "Who wants to go first?"

"I do," Lily said tearing into the envelope like a wild animal that was starved for years.

"EEEEEEEPPP!" She screeched. A noise loud enough to rip through windows and shatter bones into thousands of pieces.

"What happened?" Sean said preparing for the worst.

"I got 100 in history!" She said as she broke into tears. "Sniff… I"m so glad."

Lily"s tears were contagious. Kaylee, Ruby and Claire hadn"t even opened their results but were already crying and squeezing Lily who was unable to read the rest of her results because of her tears.

"An average of 92," Sean said reading it for her. "Well done."

Lily smiled at Sean and pushed her way through the girls that surrounded her and jumped into Sean"s arms. Pulling back to see her cheeky smile before burying herself further into his chest.

"Shall we continue?" Owen said.

"We"ll go," Claire said, opening both her and Simon"s envelope perfectly without creating even a tear.

"100 in psychology," Simon said trying to hide his excitement. "It was always going to be the case."

"Congrats babe!" Claire said as she pressed her lips against Simon and started suffocating him.

"I didn"t get any perfects." She said, "But my average was 79 so that"s good."

"s.h.i.t," Ethan said as he bit his nails. "All these perfects are making me worried. What if they only give out so many and I was too late to get one? What if I didn"t get a perfect score?"

"Why not open it and find out," Kaylee said with a sheepish grin.

"S-sure…"

He took one deep breath before reaching his hand in and pulling out the small paper with several numbers on it. He slowly opened one eye only to jolt them both open after reading the first number.

"100 in physics!" He said, "100 in physics!" he repeated in case it was a dream.

"Congrats." everyone said.

"An average of 94…" Ethan said unable to pull the smile off his face. "I got the grades I need…"

"Congrats, dude," Owen said remembering what it meant. "I"m sure you"ll do great. Make sure you keep in contact overseas."

"O-of course."

"Ok, me next," Kaylee said without caring. "I got an average of 85…" She said as she fell to the ground.

"I never thought I"d get such a high average." She said covering her face so people didn"t see her cry.

"This is nice, isn"t it," Sean said to a rather idle Owen who was anxiously waiting for his turn but didn"t want to force it to be his go.

"Yeah… it is…"

"Ok, I"ll go next," Sean said. "Average of 78. My mum is going to be so happy," he whispered to himself, even if everyone else clearly heard him.

"Ok, let"s do us next," Ruby said as she dragged Owen into the centre. "Remember the bet?"

"Yeah, yeah… the winner is the person that gets the most as before."

Ruby dove her hand as if she was already aware that she had won. She had pulled out the paper over confidently and smiled at the paper, before rubbing it in Owen"s face.

"98," She said. "It"s no perfect but good luck beating it."

"100," Owen said.

"Excuse me?"

"I got 100." Owen didn"t react on the outside but quickly turned the paper around to show Ruby who evaporated into dust right before their eyes. On the inside, Owen was dancing uncontrollably. Trying to resist the urge to rub it in her face.

"I got 60 in media… I guess I did focus on Music the most so it makes sense."

"AH HA!" Ruby said. "I go an average of 90 and you only got 85! THIS IS A WIN FOR ME!" She exclaimed, fully aware that she still lost the bet.

On a random Thursday in August, they stood in that hall for one last time, as did many others in the country. They all stood smiling and crying into each other"s arms. Holding each other closely whilst also competing with each other. They all stood together, facing the future, but not before spending one last trip together.