TENTH GRADE ANGST Read online

  TENTH GRADE ANGST

  Bruce Ingram

  Salisbury, Maryland

  TENTH GRADE ANGST

  Copyright © 2018 by Bruce Ingram

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations for purposes of review.

  For information about this title, contact the publisher:

  Secant Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 79

  Salisbury, MD 21802

  www.secantpublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-944962-47-0 (e-book)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931870

  Also by Bruce Ingram

  Tenth Grade Angst (Coming Soon)

  This book is dedicated to my Lord Botetourt High School Creative Writing II-IV students who helped edit this book. Students with stars after their names formed a special group to work on the editing process.

  Alexis Anthony*

  Reese Austin

  Haley Davis*

  Maddy Deskins*

  Jason Henderson

  Noah Jarrett

  Jessica Lancenese*

  Mary Leweke

  Abby Martin*

  Luke Nackley

  Kayla Olson

  Samantha Queen

  Anna Rosenberger*

  Daphne Spangler

  Courtney Stultz

  This book is also dedicated to the following staff at Lord Botetourt who contributed help with editing, reading advice, and/or various chapters.

  Carrie Baldacci, special education teacher

  Doak Harbison, history teacher

  Kendel Lively, librarian

  Table of Contents

  Back to School

  Chapter One: Luke

  Chapter Two: Elly

  Chapter Three: Marcus

  Chapter Four: Mia

  First Day of School

  Chapter Five: Luke

  Chapter Six: Elly

  Chapter Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Eight: Mia

  The Weekend

  Chapter Nine: Luke

  Chapter Ten: Elly

  Chapter Eleven: Marcus

  Chapter Twelve: Mia

  A Month Later

  Chapter Thirteen: Luke

  Chapter Fourteen: Elly

  Chapter Fifteen: Marcus

  Chapter Sixteen: Mia

  Homecoming

  Chapter Seventeen: Luke

  Chapter Eighteen: Elly

  Chapter Nineteen: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty: Mia

  Wheels

  Chapter Twenty-One: Luke

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Elly

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Mia

  Looking at People Differently

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Luke

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Elly

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mia

  Good Classes/Bad Classes

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Luke

  Chapter Thirty: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-One: Marcus

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Mia

  Changes

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Luke

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Marcus

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Mia

  Saturday Night Parties

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Luke

  Chapter Thirty_Eight: Elly

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Marcus

  Chapter Forty: Mia

  Never Would Have Thought

  Chapter Forty-One: Luke

  Chapter Forty-Two: Elly

  Chapter Forty-Three: Marcus

  Chapter Forty-Four: Mia

  Tests and More Tests

  Chapter Forty-Five: Luke

  Chapter Forty-Six: Elly

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Marcus

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Mia

  Do Clothes Make the Boy—or Girl?

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Luke

  Chapter Fifty: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-One: Marcus

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Mia

  Who Am I?

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Luke

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Marcus

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Mia

  Last Week of School

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Luke

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Elly

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Marcus

  Chapter Sixty: Mia

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Back to School

  Chapter One: Luke

  I have a girlfriend that likes me for who I am, and sometimes that’s still hard for me to believe. Until Mia, my whole life I’ve always felt like a loser—and having Dad constantly tell me I wasn’t ever going to amount to anything didn’t help. A year ago I didn’t even know whether I would stay in high school long enough to graduate and now because of Mia, I’ve definitely decided to go to college.

  All summer, we worked together on our business. Mia came up with the idea and originally she called it L&M Lawn Mowing and Babysitting, Incorporated, where we would pool my mowing and her babysitting jobs together and if I could convince one of my mowing contacts to hire her as a babysitter, I would get 5 percent of the money, and the reverse would be true if she got me a new contact. Then we branched out to trimming shrubbery and selling eggs from her chickens, and over the summer we added selling fresh free range chicken and tree planting as part of our services. We will do just about any kind of job for money, as long as the place is close enough for us to ride our bikes to.

  So Mia changed the name of our business to L&M Enterprises and she created a website and Facebook page. In the past year, I’ve saved a lot of money from our jobs and not using my money to buy school lunches to save every cent I can. Lots of times in the summer, I mowed three or four lawns in one day. I’m going to use that money for college or maybe one day have enough to buy some land out in the country.

  I’ve always been in awe of how smart Mia is and I’m so excited about having our first real date this Saturday. It might be hard for somebody to understand that she’s my girlfriend when we haven’t had our first date yet, but her parents wouldn’t let her go out until our sophomore year, so we’ve had to wait until Saturday. We decided back in the summer that we were going to ride our bikes somewhere, then go hiking and have a picnic. I’m in charge of the hiking destination (a place I know in the national forest) and she’s in charge of the picnic food, and we haven’t told each other what the other one has planned. She said that would be more romantic.

  I haven’t told my parents about Mia and am definitely not going to. Dad has a long list of “minorities who are ruining the country” and people from Mexico are on it—they’re just about at the top behind blacks and Middle Eastern people. I thought about telling Mom, but she’s just not right. All summer she’s been sick and in bed, and she’s been going to the doctor a lot. I’ve asked her a bunch of times what’s wrong, but she won’t tell me and keeps saying “nothing’s the matter,” but I don’t believe her.

  I’m really worried about Mom. If something happens to her, I’m afraid Dad will start drinking the hard stuff again and when he gets drunk… I don’t want to talk about it. It would just be him and me, and that would be awful. Maybe I could go live with Granddaddy.

  Mia has told me I have to have a better GPA than 2.0 (which is what I have) to get into most colleges, and she’s right of course. She said for this year, her goal for me is to improve each class a letter grade. I don’t know if that’s possible. In ninth grade, I made a B
in English and World History, and a D in Algebra I and Biology, and a C in everything else. Mia said if I had just done my homework in English and history, I could have gotten an A in both, and she’s right.

  But most days after school, I have to both take care of somebody’s lawn and wash, wax or vacuum one of Dad’s cars from his car lot business behind the house. By the time I get through with all that and eat dinner, it’s after dark and I’m exhausted. I know I can get a better grade in ecology this year than in biology last year; and really I should have made better than a C in phys. ed. and health but the health part was just so freakin’ boring. I mean, really, “the bones of the body” and “the function of the ‘amazing’ liver.” But, Mia’s right, I’ve got to make better grades and I’ll try because she told me to.

  I’ll be 16 on December 10, so that means I can get my license on March 10. Mom took me a couple of times practice driving in our neighborhood when I got my learner’s permit, but then she got sick, and riding in the car made her nauseous, so we couldn’t go anymore. Dad took me driving once, and all he did was scream and cuss at me the whole time. My stomach was in knots anyway because I’m so inexperienced, and his yelling didn’t help. I can’t stand to be around him, and I think the feeling’s mutual. He did say I could have one of his used cars to drive places, but it would be the “worst one,” so in case I had a wreck, he “wouldn’t be out much.”

  He also said that on weekends when he doesn’t go to car races, we would start going to car auctions when I got my permit, and I could drive back the clunkers he bought. I don’t want to do that. I’d rather go hunting or fishing or do something with Mia… maybe work somewhere for money. Dad never pays me anything; he says working for him is the price I pay for “living under his roof.” This weekend auction thing is just going to be one more thing for us to fight about.

  I don’t want to live my adult life like my parents do. There’s like this constant fear in our house that the money is about to run out. I’ve talked to Mia about this, and she said her mama said that “education is the way out.” Well, I want “out.” Mia makes me believe I can make it.

  Chapter Two: Elly

  I’m excited about school getting ready to start, but I’m not happy about how I look, my relationship with my boyfriend Paul, and this really hurts to say, but I need to… I fear that I’ve been shallow and lazy and maybe my parents have pampered me because I’m the only girl in our family. I want to do something about all these things this year.

  I’ve started working on the appearance issue. Over the summer, I talked Mom into buying me contacts so I could rid of those awful mousy glasses that I’ve worn for years. It took me about a month to get used to the contacts, but now everything’s working just fine in that department. But on the other hand, I gained four pounds over the summer and now I’m about 25 pounds overweight. I just don’t see how I gained those four pounds. It must have happened when I was away at computer camp for two weeks. The food was really good and there weren’t any scales around and I just maybe ate too much. Paul didn’t even notice that I got contacts (which was depressing) and gained four pounds (which was good, I guess). On the other hand, he never really looks at me or talks about anything except his playing football, and “bulking up” because he’s an offensive lineman—just stupid sports stuff.

  I spent almost the whole summer at camps or on vacation with my parents. Enrichment camp, computer camp, gifted children of well-off parents’ camp… those weren’t their real names but that’s what they amounted to. My family spent a week at the beach and later ten days touring places around the country. I was only home about three weekends all summer.

  The only good thing about being gone was that I only had to go out with Paul twice all summer. He’s not rough with me or anything like that and he’s an okay guy, but the truth is, I don’t feel anything when he kisses me, and I don’t see this relationship ever going somewhere. Plus, kissing him is about as appealing as having sandpaper rubbed across my face. He either needs to grow a beard or shave his stubble, one or the other… gross! Over the summer, I began to worry that the only real reason I go out with him is because I fear that no one else will ask me out. That I just like the thought of having a boyfriend and having someone take me places. Which leads to me feeling—fearing - that I’m a shallow, insincere person, and I don’t ever want to be that type person.

  How do you break up with a guy? I’ve never done that before because Paul is the only guy I’ve ever gone out with. I’ve decided I’m going to talk to my best friends at school: Paige, Mary, and Mia, about how to do it. They’ve never broken up with anybody either but between the four of us, I hope we can figure out something.

  I only saw Mia once all summer and that was when she and Luke came over because Dad hired them to “maintain and groom” our yard. They started work while I was still asleep and Dad told Luke to do other chores besides mowing until I woke up, which made Luke have to mow when it had gotten hotter. So I had eaten breakfast and was sitting in an air conditioning room painting my nails before I even realized they were here. I looked out and saw Mia trimming shrubs and Luke mowing, which made me feel lazy and worthless and guilty all at the same time. Like, they are sweating like crazy and I’m sitting inside in air conditioning with wet toenails. And that disgusting feeling of me being shallow just washed over me.

  Finally, I decided to get dressed and come out and help Mia with the trimming, but as I was finding my shoes, I saw Luke stop mowing, bring some water to her, and motion for her to go sit in the shade and rest while he did her work for her for a while. Then she leaned her head into his shoulder, and he did the same, and then they hugged and held hands briefly, and I felt worse than ever about myself and my relationship with Paul. Why can’t he show me tenderness like that? I want a guy like Luke, and sometimes I think I want Luke. Yeah, that would go over great with Dad, me dating the lawn maintenance boy from a poor family. And I would never try to steal a boy from a friend like Mia.

  While Luke was doing Mia’s work, I came out and talked to her about her summer. She was really glad to see me and said she had spent the whole summer working with Luke and doing her regular chores around the house and yard. When she asked me what I had done, I just said nothing much. I didn’t want her to feel, well, deprived, if that is the word, because my parents have money to spend on things like camps and vacations. Then, I started feeling shallow again. I had to ask Mia if she and Luke had gone out on any dates, and she said no, that they were having their first date the first Saturday after the first week of our 10th grade year, which is when her parents said she could date. And I was again envious of her because she has someone she’s really interested in, and I don’t.

  I decided that morning that I was going to try to volunteer somewhere for something. I ended up finding a volunteer job on Saturday mornings where, when school starts, I will tutor at risk kids for a local human services agency. I hope this will make me feel better about myself, and it will also help me get prepared for my job as a teacher when I graduate from college.

  Chapter Three: Marcus

  I should never have cheated on that history test last spring. My life has been screwed up ever since. It was bad enough that Coach Dell suspended me for the first two games of the football season because of the cheating, but then my girlfriend Tameka dumped me when she found out. Well, I think it was because of the cheating, it also might have had something to do with the fact that my parents grounded me for a month after they found out about my D in history for the year because of my cheating.

  At the start of the summer, I blamed all my bad luck on getting caught and was ranting about that one day to my older brother Joshua when he said, “Your cheating had nothing to do with Camila and Kylee dumping you, maybe you’d better look a little deeper about what your real problem is—you’re an insufferable little jerk.”

  At first I wanted to hit him, but then I remembered how he beat the crap out of me last May when all the cheating stuff happened, and I dec
ided to back down. But, then, as time went by over the summer, I began to realize that Joshua was maybe right. I really hated to admit that to myself, but big brother was really right. I’ve got to grow up and take more responsibility for myself.

  I also started to think about how many friends I really had and Caleb was really the only one. And even he is mad at me now because I’m his number one receiver on the football team and my being suspended is going to make things harder on him as the quarterback. So I apologized to him one day during summer workouts and told him I would try to make it up to him when I was back playing in games. He said he appreciated me saying that.

  Then I decided to try to put things right with other people, starting with Mom and Dad. After dinner one night when Joshua had gone up to his room, I told them I was sincerely sorry for how I had been acting and would make it up to them by making better grades this year. I could tell Dad was skeptical, and he said I was still grounded for a month. He added that getting a car next spring (I’ve got my learners now) was still “under evaluation.” I think he was surprised when I said all that, because I think he was expecting for me to argue with him, which, I admit, is what I’ve always done in the past. Mom said the best way for me to “show my good intentions” was to “honestly earn” an A or a B in every subject… preferably “more of the former than the latter.” I said I would try, and I meant that, too.

  I also sent an e-mail to Coach Dell and apologized to him and told him I would try to make it up to him and the team by my actions on the field. He responded immediately, and he said he would be looking forward to my putting my “words into deeds.” I didn’t apologize to Joshua. He criticizes me harsher than anybody, and wouldn’t believe that I’m trying to change. But I’m going to show him, too.

  I also texted Kylee, Camila, and Tameka, not all together but separately, and apologized for my behavior and said I was sorry for being immature when we were dating. Tameka didn’t respond at all; she must still really be angry with me. All Camila texted back was “okay,” which was at least something; she’s probably still pretty ticked, too. But Kylee texted back that she was really glad that I was showing some “introspection” and that I had a lot of potential in life and sports if I were “more mature.” That last comment really stung, but at least she thought enough about me to write. I waited a few days, so I could put my thoughts together, and texted back to her and said thanks and that she is a good friend. We’ve been texting at least once a day since then. I’m going to take it slow with her. I still like her a lot and maybe I could see if she would give me a second shot as a boyfriend. She’s hot and smart, but she’s also the type of girl that’s not going to take any crap from any boy…which is probably the type of girl I need to keep me straight.