She nodded. “Yes. Okay.” Taylor sucked in a deep breath and slowly released it. “I’m ready,” she said again.
Jamar read the instructions and, a minute later, gave her permission to open the testing booklet. The first section was English, her least favorite subject.
Her eyes traveled across the page as Jamar began with the first passage, which required her to choose alternative meanings for underlined words and phrases. She barely heard the words. She was too preoccupied with thoughts of the answers that would follow.
A familiar sensation began to take hold of her. Her hands started shaking as the air suddenly escaped from her lungs. She tried to pull in a breath, but it felt as though her chest were shrinking and expanding at the same time. A sharp, overwhelming surge of panic flushed through her bloodstream.
“Taylor. Taylor, take a breath.” Jamar knelt next to her chair and grasped both of her hands. “It’s okay,” he said, his soothing voice washing over her like a reassuring, calming rain. He kissed the backs of her fingers and rubbed her hands between his warm palms. “What brought that on?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “I just . . . The thought of having to come up with all these answers brings on this . . . this terror.”
“It’soneanswer, Taylor. You’re taking this one question at a time. Don’t worry about the next one until we get there.” He kissed her hands again. Brief, gentle pecks that melted her heart. “Do you want to continue?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she nodded. “Yes. I’m not quitting. Not this time.”
Taylor sensed his hesitation, but he stood, picked up the test booklet again, and continued with the passage. She wasn’t sure if it was his low, comforting voice or knowing that he was there to talk her down if she went too close to the edge, but her confidence began to grow with each question she conquered. They completed the English, then the Math sections. Jamar assured her that it was okay to take a break before they tackled the Reading and Science portions.
By the time she was done, nearly five hours had passed. Taylor felt as if she’d just completed a triathlon. Sweat made her shirt stick to the small of her back. Her arms hung at her sides, her limbs too heavy to move.
Jamar took the seat just next to hers. He produced a Sharpie seemingly out of thin air and slid over her answer booklet.
“What are you doing?” Taylor asked.
“Scoring your test.”
“Don’t do that!” She reached for the booklet, but he snatched it before she could grab it.
“What’s the point in taking the test if you don’t know what you scored?”
“This isn’t about the score,” she said. “It’s about whether I could get through the test without losing my shit. Mission accomplished.”
His brow arched.
“Okay, mission semi-accomplished. At least I finished this time.”
“Yes, finishing is very important. But the score still matters, Taylor. This wasn’t only about you getting through the test—it was about finding your baseline, remember? Let’s just see how you did.”
“Fine,” she said. She pushed up from the table. “But I can’t sit here and watch while you do this.”
She went into the kitchen and grabbed the bunch of bananas hanging from a hook above the fruit bowl. She tore one off and peeled it as she paced from the edge of the kitchen island to the refrigerator. She was sure she could hear the seconds ticking away on the microwave’s clock as she waited for Jamar to finish.
She’d mashed five bananas and measured out all the dry ingredients for banana bread by the time she heard Jamar’s footsteps. She went to stand near the sink, preparing for the worst. When he appeared in the entry to the kitchen, Taylor knew she was about to receive bad news.
“Well?” she asked.
“Your raw score in science was a twenty-eight out of forty, so that’s good. The others, not so good,” he said. He held the score sheet out to her.
Taylor took it and read over his markings.
“A sixteen overall?”
“Yeah. That places you in the bottom third, percentage-wise.”
She looked up at him, a smile breaking out over her face. “The last time I took this test, I scored a twelve.” Taylor laughed at the way his eyes grew wide. “Don’t look so spooked. I know this isn’t the best score, but it’s honestly so much better than I expected.”
She was giddy with the relief spreading through her. She wrapped her arms around Jamar’s neck.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said. “And for not letting me run away.”
