Story #37 - The SAT: > or < Friendship?

Hi! This week's story is a friendship drama about the SAT. I hope you enjoy it! :)

Title: SAT: > or < Friendship?
Warnings: a few swear words, questionable morals
Summary:  Cass has to do well on the SAT.
Length: ~2,800 words
Notes: Third person point of view, present tense. Genre is drama.

The SAT: > or < Friendship?

            “So, you’ve got a big day tomorrow,” her dad says, carefully and neatly picking up his rice with his chopsticks. When he is done chewing, he looks at Cass, like he expects her to respond. She’s not sure what he wants her to say.

            “Yeah,” she says eventually. She looks down at her own plate. Her rice and chicken are practically untouched.

            Unfortunately, her dad notices. “You should eat,” he says sternly. “I know they say that eating a good breakfast is the important before taking the SAT. I’m sure that applies to dinner as well.”

            “Right,” Cass says. She glances out of the corner of her eye at her mom, who’s been pretty quiet so far. Sometimes she’ll cut in and tell her dad to lay off on her a little, but it seems like tonight that isn’t going to happen. Cass’s suspicions are proven correct when her mom looks up.

            “Your father’s right,” her traitorous mom says. “You should make sure you have proper nutrition anyways, but especially the night before your big test.”

            “Okay.” Cass stifles a sigh and picks up her chopsticks. At least one of the upsides of being at the point of her life where she’s taking the SAT is that soon enough she won’t have to listen to her parents anymore. Or at least they won’t know if she’s not listening.

            “Are you ready for this test, Cassandra?” her dad asks. He’s looking at her intently, and as so often happens with him, Cass can feel his expectations and goals for her like a smothering blanket weighing her down.

            “Of course I am, Dad,” Cass says, sitting up straighter and trying to look confident. “You know I am. I went to all those classes. I read all of those books. I’ve taken like twenty practice tests.”

            “Don’t exaggerate, Cassandra,” her mom scolds.

            “I’m not.” And she isn’t, really – she’s probably underestimating the exact number.

“Nevertheless,” her dad continues doggedly, “make sure you’re as prepared as you can be. Study a little bit before you go to sleep – don’t do a practice test or anything, but maybe review some of the strategies for writing the essay or analyzing the reading section.”

“Okay, Dad,” Cass replies. She can’t help but notice how robotic her voice sounds. But she can’t help it. She’s been practically living the SAT for months now. She can’t put any enthusiasm in her voice.

She knows she’ll do what her dad says, though. Because she needs to get a good score. For herself, yes, of course. But mostly for her parents.

“Make us proud,” her dad says.

No pressure, Cass thinks. “I will,” she says.

When she gets into her room, she closes the door and calls Sophie. She needs to vent to someone, and Sophie’s usually pretty good at listening to her.

“Hello?” Sophie answers the phone.

“Hey,” Cass says. “It’s me.”

“Oh, hey, Cass! What’s up?”

Cass sighs. “Nothing much. I’m supposed to be studying for the SAT.”

Sophie huffs a laugh. “I hear ya. I’ve hardly studied. I’m gonna be so screwed.”

“No you’re not. You’re super smart. I bet you’ll still score like 200 points higher than me even though I’ve studied and you haven’t.”

“Ha. I wish.”

Cass can’t help but wish for Sophie to score lower than her. She doesn’t want to hear the refrain from her dad – Why can’t you be more like Sophie? He had stopped saying that recently, because she’d been getting better grades and studying hard. She doesn’t want their SAT scores to ruin that. Maybe she just wouldn’t tell him what Sophie got on her SAT – but Sophie’s mom was sure to tell Cass’s mom. Parents. Which brought her back to the original reason she’d called Sophie…

“My dad’s been harping on me about getting a good score again. I hate being the future of the Chang family. It really takes it out of me.”

Sophie hums in sympathy, but Cass knows that she doesn’t really understand. Her parents aren’t nearly as strict as Sophie’s. And besides, she’s probably never really let them down before.

“You’ll do great,” Sophie says. “And if your parents aren’t happy with your score, screw them. This is about you.”

“I know. But I want to be happy with my score, too.”

“If you’ve studied as much as you say you have, then you will be.”

Cass wants to believe Sophie, but she can’t. Yes, she’s studied a lot, but some things still escape her. She can’t seem to answer properly in the Critical Reading section no matter how much she studies.

“I should probably go,” Cass says. “I just wanted to complain to you a bit, but now I probably should study.”

“Alright,” Sophie says. “I guess I should too. Have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early!”

“Don’t remind me,” Cass says, but good-naturedly. She doesn’t mind getting up early. There’s something so beautiful and peaceful about the morning, with the sun low in the sky and the birds singing in the trees.

“Bye,” Sophie says.

“Bye.”

Cass hangs up the phone and then turns to her Princeton Review SAT book. She hefts it onto her desk and opens it to “Tips for the Critical Reading Section.” She begins to review.

She needs to do well on this. She needs to do better than Sophie.

In the morning, Cass eats a hearty breakfast – two bowls of Life cereal with lots of milk. Her dad is already at work, but her mom drops her off. She gives Cass a kiss on the cheek before letting her out of the car.

“Good luck,” she says. “Make us proud.”

Cass just nods and nearly sprints into Franklin High. It’s not her own high school, so she wants to have enough time to find wherever she’s supposed to be. Luckily, they’ve made it pretty easy for everyone. There are signs pointing where to go. Cass follows them.

She makes sure she has her student ID, admission ticket, and calculator. She’s good. She’s also gone over this probably fifteen times, but it helps keep the nerves away. God, she’s so nervous. What if she freezes when the test starts? What if she does everything wrong?

Well, she’s done the first thing right, at least. Cass follows the signs until she reaches Room 17 – from Bulligan to Davis. This should be her room.

Sure enough, she walks in, says “Cassandra Chang,” gets her name marked off the list, and she’s good to go. She looks around and finds that Sophie’s in the same room. Sophie waves her over, and Cass takes the seat next to her.

“Hey,” Sophie says with a smile. She doesn’t look nervous at all.

“Hi,” Cass replies. “God, I’m so nervous. I can’t believe today is the day.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll do great,” Sophie says. “And remember, you can always retake it.”

Again, Sophie doesn’t understand. The point is not having to retake it. And not just because it would be a pain, but because Cass needs to be good enough the first time.

“Yeah,” Cass says. “That’s true, but I’d rather not retake it.”

A few minutes later, the proctor calls everyone to order and begins reading the directions. Cass can hardly hold the pencil because her palms are sweating so much. This is ridiculous.

The proctor tells them to begin. The first test is the essay. The prompt isn’t too bad – something about whether honor is an individual or societal thing. Cass goes for both. She manages to get everything down and write some good examples, and she’s feeling pretty confident.

Next is math, which is no problem. But after that comes the critical reading. The very first vocabulary question stumps her, which is never a good sign. The easy problems are supposed to come first.

Cass looks up at the clock, and in doing so glances at Sophie. She’s on the critical reading section too, and doing a lot better by the looks of it. Cass looks at bit closer, squinting her eyes, and realizes that she can see what question Sophie is doing. It’s the same question as Cass. They must have the same version! That was unusual.

Cass turns back to her own test booklet and tries to continue working, but she doesn’t understand any of the questions. She can’t even focus on reading the terribly boring passages. Sophie seems to taunt her, hardly even pausing before filling in answers.

Sophie’s smart. She’s probably getting everything right. Cass isn’t, but she can see Sophie’s answers.

Would it really be so wrong if she were to… well, copy Sophie’s answers?

Cass tries to catch Sophie’s eye to signal to her, so she can – who knows? ask her permission to copy or something? – but Sophie is focused on her test.

Cass bites her pencil as she considers. She knows cheating is wrong. But she also knows that she isn’t going to do well on the SAT without cheating. And what matters more, in the long run? What will get her farther in life?

Sophie wouldn’t mind. They copy each other’s homework on the time. It’ll be okay.

Her mind made up, Cass continues with the section, quickly filling in what Sophie fills in. She can tell her during the break. It’ll be okay.

Cass doesn’t end up telling Sophie during the break. It just seems like a weird thing to say – “Hey, just so you know, I’ve been copying your answers for the critical reading section.” That just isn’t something that you tell someone.

Besides, it’s not like she’s copying everything. She wrote her own essay, she does all the math questions herself, and the writing section. She even answers some of the critical reading question that she’s sure she gets (and yeah, she checks to see if Sophie wrote the same thing. It’s just checking her answers, though, that part isn’t cheating).

Cass can’t help but have a really good feeling about this. She’s acing every section. Her parents will be so proud – and she’ll be proud, too. Still, thank God for sitting next to Sophie! Cass isn’t sure what she would’ve done with her.

Near the end of the test, Cass and Sophie are working on a critical reading section (the last one, thank God). Cass looks over to see what Sophie’s filled out for question number nine and sees Sophie staring straight at her. Cass smiles, but Sophie just furrows her brow.

Who knows what’s gotten into her! (Hopefully she doesn’t suspect anything.)

After the test Cass and Sophie are waiting for their respective rides when Sophie pulls Cass aside. Cass turns to her, curious. Sophie’s been unsually quiet, and Cass can’t help but connect it to what’s she’s termed That Look near the end of the test. Sophie doesn’t know, does she? And she wouldn’t care, would she?

“Cass,” Sophie says, and she twirls a piece of hair around her finger. Cass recognizes this as Sophie being nervous, and feels a small ball of dread form in her throat. Why would Sophie feel nervous?

“Yeah?” Cass tries to sound casual.

“Um, I’m not sure how to say this,” Sophie says quickly, “and please don’t get mad if I’m way off, which I probably am, but, uh – were you looking at my test when we were taking the SAT? It – it kinda seemed like you were copying down my answers.”

Cass’s first instinct is to scoff and toss it off as Sophie imagining things. That seems to be what Sophie is leaning towards. Now it’s time to see how good of an actress she is.

“Uh, no, of course I wasn’t copying your answers! Ha. Don’t be ridiculous. I would never do that. I can do critical reading just fine on my own!”

Cass suppresses an inward wince at how her voice seems to have jumped up an octave. Okay, so maybe acting isn’t in her future.

            Sophie gives her a narrow-eyed look. “You did seem to look over a lot during critical reading.”

            “Um, no I didn’t.”

“It’s just that, y’know, the SAT is really strict. If you cheated… I mean, I could report to CollegeBoard that someone cheated in the test center, and they’d cancel your scores.”

Cass stares at Sophie in disbelief. Sophie bites her lip, but Cass recognizes that look in her eyes. It’s determination. She’s not going to back down.

“Sophie… you’re joking, right? I mean, we copy off each other all the time. What does it matter that this test is just a bit more famous than the others?”

Sophie closes her eyes briefly. “Then you did cheat?”

Cass crosses her arms and shrugs, staring at the ground. “Technically, yeah,” she mutters. She feels stupid now. It had made so much sense in the test room – it had seemed like the only option. It had been the only option, because failure was never an option.

Sophie looks at Cass with wide eyes. “How could you, Cass? I know doing well on this test means a lot to you, but – how could you be so stupid?”

Cass straightens up in an instinctively defensive posture. “It’s not stupid,” Cass says. “I’m not stupid. And I thought you were my friend. I would’ve let you copy down my answers if you wanted to.”

(Would she have? Well, that’s not important. It’s not like Sophie would ever need to.)

Sophie shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Cass,” she says. “You need to cancel your scores, or I’m going to have to report you. I can’t allow you to cheat.”

“What?” Cass says loudly. People near them look around, so Cass lowers her voice, but puts as much venom as she can in it. “Who do you think you are? You don’t have any authority to tell me what to do, or to be so self-righteous. I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, and that’s why I can’t let you do this! You’re sabotaging your future, Cass! You can’t go through life cheating and copying others’ skills. You need to have skills of your own.”

Sophie’s words seem to pierce Cass through the heart. Sophie thinks she has no skill of her own? Why is she even friends with Sophie?

“You think you’re so much better than me,” Cass whispers. “You’ve never understood anything. I need to do well on the SAT. I need to make my parents proud, and if I have to copy down your answers to do that, fine. But you can’t make me cancel my scores. And you’re not going to report me. Because if you do – then you know what, our friendship is over.”

Sophie stares at Cass, her eyes a maelstrom of emotion. Cass sees shock, hurt, and anger – but maybe that’s just how she feels herself. Sophie probably doesn’t care.

“You know what, Cass?” Sophie finally says, quietly. “Keep your damn score. I really don’t care anymore, and you obviously do. So keep it. But I want you to know – it’s not worth it. Just like… just like you’re not worth it. I’m done being your friend, Cass. Goodbye.”

Sophie turns away before Cass can say anything. Cass thinks about calling her back, but what would she say? And why should she say anything, anyway? What she really should say is “good riddance.”

Her mom picks her up. She asks how the test went, and Cass answers the best she can. She has a sudden desire to blurt, “I cheated!” but it passes. She doesn’t want to lose anyone else over a stupid thing like this.

Weeks pass, and Cass gets her SAT scores back. She got a 2340, way, way higher than she expected. Her parents are ecstatic. They take her out to her favorite restaurant to celebrate, and don’t even complain that it’s Mexican food. Her dad tells Cass that he’s proud of her, and her mom lets her stay up as late as she wants. Her dad doesn’t even mention Sophie (who apparently got a 2300, not that Cass would know, because they aren’t talking).

It’s weird not talking to Sophie. They see each other at school (hell, they sit next to each other in some classes), but they don’t interact. But the day that their SAT scores come, Cass finds a note in her locker. It’s written in Sophie’s large, cramped handwriting.

It reads, 2340? I hope it’s worth it, Cass. I hope you’re happy. You earned it - oh wait, no you didn’t. - Sophie

Cass throws the note in the garbage.

Later that day, she goes home and stares at her SAT scores. Then she stares at a picture of her and Sophie at Sophie’s fifteenth birthday party. Their arms are around each other and they’re smiling. They both look so happy and carefree.

Cass looks at her SAT scores again. 2340.

It’s worth it. It has to be.

THE END!