Sometimes, she looks around the classroom and wonders how everyone else gets it. The teachers just seem to speak another language half the time. Or maybe it’s not them, it’s her, she’s just stupid or something.

Not stupid. Just stressed.

It’s too hard to work under pressure. Maybe, if everyone would back off, leave her alone, she’d do better. Or at least do well enough to scrape through school and graduate, and then…

Mimi squats, counts to ten, drops onto the carpet.

What’s the point, anyway? She’s going to have to drop gymnastics soon. Her parents are too worried about her grades, her grades, her grades. Seminary and shidduchim and whatever. She needs to study and study and study and hope her brain doesn’t explode from all the pressure and the hours breaking her head over illegible notes in her bedroom.

I wish I could just skip seminary, train as a gymnastics coach, and who cares about grades. If I was a coach, it wouldn’t matter.

Shoshana will be here any minute. She should finish her exercises, but it feels like there’s no point anymore. Instead, Mimi sprawls back on her bed and stares at the ceiling until her eyes glaze over.

There’s no point trying to study.

There’s no point trying to exercise.

There’s no point in anything anymore, really.

“Sorry I’m late.” Shoshana is breathless. Mimi sits up and tries to smile.

“No problem.”

“What should we do first?”

There’s math homework, a Chumash review, and a major halachah test in two days. Mimi shrugs.

“Math?”

She used to be good at math, it was her thing. But now it’s not math anymore, it’s trig or algebra or differentials and x and y and nothing makes any sense.

“Sure.” Shoshana uncaps her pen. “Um, you want to get your stuff out?”

“Yeah.” But Mimi’s muscles feel like lead. She doesn’t have the energy to move.

Shoshana blinks, uncertain. “Are you… okay, Mimi?”

Is she okay? No, of course she isn’t okay. Not with her friends, not with her parents, not with her sister who waltzed into her school, her class, her social life, and turned everything upside down. Not with mountains of schoolwork that everyone else seems to breeze through while she struggles for hours and fails anyway.

She looks at Shoshana and she just can’t say anything.

What’s there to say?

I’m failing school and my parents want me to leave gymnastics.

Kayla’s making me crazy and to top it all off, she’s acing every test while I’m gonna be getting a tutor just to get into seminary.

Our friendship is falling apart and it’s all your fault.

Yeah. Right. Totally.

“No, I’m good. Just tired,” she says, and finally hauls herself off the bed to find the math review.

Shoshana looks relieved. “Oh, good.”

It’s always easier to study with a friend than to understand the material in class. Mimi wonders why; is it just the fact that she doesn’t feel nervous around her friends? Or is Shoshana a better teacher than Mrs. Price?

“So, in that case, for this problem you would have to—”

A sharp tap on the door interrupts them. It’s Kayla.

“I don’t mean to disturb,” she says, peering down at the pair on the floor. “But I’m scheduling my evening and I need to know what time you’ll be available.”

“Available?” Mimi asks, stupefied.

Kayla gazes down at her, unblinking. “Yes. For tutoring.” She pauses a beat. “Ma didn’t tell you?”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 912)