Chapter 4After the Finals: The Smiling Valedictorian and the Crying Slacker

By the time my best friend Savannah Mitchell ran over, I was still standing there like a statue.

She practically tackled me, almost knocking me to the floor.

Savannah grabbed my shoulders, shaking me back and forth, sobbing loudly. "Riley, you idiot, what happened?! How could you drop the ball at the most critical moment of your life? Waaaah!"

I looked at Savannah in confusion. She was genuinely bawling, massive tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing onto the floor.

"I know you're hurting the most right now, and I should be comforting you, but I just can't hold it in! I'm so sad! Riley, you jerk, you're usually so arrogant and confident! How could you bomb the finals? You total failure, waaaah!"

In no time, Savannah had soaked the shoulder of my shirt with her tears.

I looked at her scrunched-up, crying face.

"Sav, stop howling. Who told you I bombed the exams? I did perfectly fine."

I pulled out a tissue and wiped her face.

Savannah pouted. "Really? Then why didn't you answer any of my calls last night?!"

"I was exhausted after the tests. I went home, skipped dinner, and crashed. I didn't hear my phone."

Savannah looked at me with red eyes. "Then... did you actually finish the AP Calculus section? Did you write real answers?"

I nodded. "I finished the whole thing. I answered everything seriously and even had thirty minutes left over to check my work."

Savannah's lips curled up into a wobbly smile, but then she frowned again. "But last night, Hailey said you looked awful after the math exam. She said you told her the test was incredibly hard, that you only knew the multiple-choice, and you guessed on all the free-response questions."

"Hailey said that?"

Savannah nodded. "She announced it in front of the whole class at the party! Also, you haven't been on social media since yesterday, right? A news crew caught you on camera. You went viral."

I was completely lost. "What are you talking about?"

I only missed one party.

How did a whole season of television drama happen in one night?

Seeing my blank face, Savannah pulled out her phone and showed me a video.

In the video, a reporter was interviewing the first student out of the testing center.

I knew the guy—Carter Hayes from Class 2, the genius who was constantly battling me for the #1 rank in our grade.

Because Carter was incredibly good-looking, the video had blown up online.

While Carter was smiling at the camera saying the exam wasn't that difficult, I walked out in the background, my face pale, clutching my stomach, and wiping away tears.

Someone took a screenshot of this dramatic contrast, creating the ultimate meme: "The Smiling Valedictorian and the Crying Slacker."

The comments were wild: "The smiling nerd in the front is so handsome, and the crying slacker in the back really knows how to put on a tragic show."

Me: Gee, thanks a lot. Y'all are so sweet for complimenting my crying skills.