In Fate's Hands

“All right, class, settle down!” shouted Mr. Thomas as the students chatted away. “I won’t give your tests back unless you quiet down.” The class went silent almost immediately.

Generally, everyone liked Mr. Thomas. He was one of those easygoing teachers who really wanted to help his students if they were struggling, but he wasn’t about to let them get away with anything. If you were in his class, then you really had to work to earn a good grade.

“Thank you. Now, please do the warm-up written on the board while I pass out your tests.” The students took out their notebooks as Mr. Thomas picked the tests up from his desk and began to pass them out.

Jesse began to get nervous as he watched Mr. Thomas pass out the graded tests. He needed a GPA of at least 2.7 to stay on the high school’s basketball team and right now his GPA was just that; if he got a bad grade on this test, he would be in big trouble. This was the only class where he really and truly struggled; he was lucky if he even got a 70% on any of Mr. Thomas’s tests.

“Not your best work, McCartney,” Mr. Thomas said as he dropped Jesse’s test upside down on his desk. Reluctantly, Jesse turned the test over and looked at his score: 56%. Crap.

Jesse sat there wondering what he should do. He had to find a way to bring up his grades, otherwise he would be off the team and he really couldn’t let that happen. Basketball was his dream and, if he didn’t have basketball, he would be completely lost, not to mention dead because his domineering father would kill him if he ever found out that Jesse got kicked off the team because of his grades. No basketball, no scholarship, no NBA. He looked up as Mr. Thomas spoke to the class again.

“Class, I would like to congratulate Elizabeth Bancroft for getting the highest score of all my students past and present; she was the only student I have ever had to get a perfect score on this test. Everyone please give her a round of applause.”

As Jesse looked at Elizabeth, he got an idea, but he wasn’t quite sure if it would work. But, it couldn’t hurt to try, right?

After class, Elizabeth walked to her locker to drop off her books from her previous class. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Jesse kid coming over to her again. Oh no, she thought, he’s coming over to make fun of me again. She shut her locker and started walking quickly in the opposite direction, but then-

“Elizabeth, wait!” she heard him calling from behind her, but she didn’t wait; she kept on walking. To her surprise, he ran up next to her.

“Get away from me,” she said coldly and quietly. She tried to walk faster, but he kept on catching up.

“Look, I’m sorry for making fun of you before, ok?”

She ignored him and just kept walking.

“I’ll admit it, I was a jerk before. I didn’t mean the things I said.”

She stopped short and looked him directly in the eyes. “So you didn’t mean it when you tried to feel me up before? Your hands just happened to accidentally travel up my leg? Nice one. Technically, I could report you for sexual harassment.” She started walking quickly again.

“Please don’t.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

“Because I want to be better. It’s not right to treat a girl like that.”

“All right, cut the crap, McCartney, and tell me what you really want.”

“I need you to tutor me in math.”

“I’ll find someone else to do it.”

“No, I want you to do it.”

“Why would you want me, the girl who is disgusting and always wears the same clothes, to tutor you?”

“Because you are the smartest person in our grade and I am failing that class. It’s the only thing holding me back from having a decent GPA and if I don’t pass it, I get kicked off the basketball team and all my dreams are down the drain. Do you really want to have that on your conscience?”

“I don’t owe you anything.” With that, she walked into her classroom as the bell rang. Jesse had no choice but to turn around and head to his own class.

When Elizabeth entered the changing room for her gym class, she was surprised to see Jayden there.

“Hey, are you in my gym class and I just didn’t notice before?” she asked.

“Do you have Ms. Ricci?” Jayden asked.

“Yup.”

“Well then I am definitely in your class.”

“Sweet. So guess what just happened?” Elizabeth responded as she took her clothes and went into a bathroom stall to change. She couldn’t change in front of anyone else in case they noticed her bruises.

“What?” Jayden asked, noticing that Elizabeth was in the stall and not beside her.

“You’ll never guess who just had the nerve to come up to me and ask me to tutor him.”

“Who was it?”

“Jesse! After all the terrible things he has said to me over time, he expects me to magically forgive him and tutor him.”

“That bastard. Are you going to tutor him?”

“No. Why should I? He has to deserve it first.”

“I like the way you think. You ready?”

“Yup.” Elizabeth came out of the stall in her gym clothes and they walked into the gym together.

45 minutes later, school was over, so Elizabeth had no choice but to go home, but Jayden stopped her in the changing room.

“Hey, Elizabeth, do you want to hang out after school today or something?”

“No I don’t think I will be able to. I have way too much work to do.”

“Ok what about this weekend?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see what I’m doing and get back to you.” Even though she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to go out, she thought maybe she could see if there was a way she could sneak out.

“Just let me know.” She handed Elizabeth her phone. “Put your number in there.”

Elizabeth looked at the phone for a second and then gave it back. “Actually, can you just give me your number and then I will call you? It would be a lot easier that way.”

“Ok that’s fine.” She waited as Elizabeth took out a pen and paper and then she recited her phone number.

“Thanks,” Elizabeth said as she put the pen and paper away. “I’ll catch you later.” She walked out to her bus.

Once Elizabeth got off the bus and started walking toward her house, she looked at her watch and panicked; she was going to be late getting home and she knew that he would not like that at all. She gulped and tried to swallow down her fear as she approached her house. She tried to sneak in quietly through the back door, but he heard her.

“What took you so long?” he asked in an angry voice. He had a beer bottle in his hand, which meant that he was probably drunk. It was always the worst when he was drunk.

“There was more traffic than usual.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe there was an accident or something,” she said quietly.

“Did you see cops trying to clear up an accident?”

“No.”

“Well then it must not have been an accident, which means that you just lied to me.” He slapped her hard across the face. “Now, want to try again and tell me the truth, Lizzie?”

“I-I d-don’t know w-why there was t-traffic,” she said; she was trembling all over.

“LIAR!” he screamed. He punched her square in the nose and watched as she fell to the floor and blood gushed out of her nose. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he kicked her in the stomach and legs. After a few minutes, he finally got bored and left her scrunched up on the floor holding her stomach and crying.

Meanwhile, when Jesse got out of school, he went home and grabbed his high school directory to find Elizabeth’s address; he was going to go to her house to try to convince her to tutor him. Once he found it, he got back in the car. When he walked up to her porch, he heard a lot of commotion. A man’s voice was yelling and a girl was crying, but then the yelling stopped and all he heard was the crying. He tried to look inside, but he could not see anything through the curtains, so he knocked on the door.

There was a long pause and the whole house went completely silent. Elizabeth was completely startled and too weak to get up, but he would never let her answer the door anyway. He charged back into the room and waited for her to crawl out of view before he opened the door.

“Yeah, what do you want?” he asked fiercely.

“Is Elizabeth home?”

“She’s not home,” he was about the shut the door, but Jesse held his hand out to block it.

“I heard screaming. Is everything ok here?”

“Everything is fine. That was my wife. We just had a little fight, that’s all.” Before Jesse could say anything else, Anthony shut the door in his face. He made sure Jesse went away before yanking Elizabeth out of her hiding place by the hair.

“Who is that boy and why did he come here?” he asked furiously

“His name is Jesse. I don’t know why he came here.”

“And you gave him our address?”

“No! I s-swear I didn’t. He must have gotten it some other w-way. I h-honestly don’t know how he g-got it.”

“Why do you always lie to me? Now I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.” He picked Elizabeth up off the ground and threw her into the wall; she hit her head and got knocked unconscious.