Never Again

The room was deathly silent but for the gentle scratch of 17 red HB pencils, carefully marking in their answers. Ellie looked up at the clock, which seemed to glare down menacingly, judgingly, with its precise minute marks and fat second hand. She turned her head back to her paper, furiously scribbling in the green script book.
The clock winked, and after what seemed like only a few minutes, the command came. Sweat trickled down Ellie’s spine, and her face was flushed with anxiousness and hope. She didn’t dare look around the room.
“Pens down. Please make sure your student number on your exam matches the card on your desk.”
After checking the cover of her exam booklet several times, Ellie began to pack up her pencils and highlighters, hardly daring to voice the thought that had been lurking at the back of her mark since the start of the exam at 9.45am.
“Can you believe its over?” whispered Jemma who sat only a few metres away and rocked on her chair impatiently.
“You may now leave the room. Please take all your rubbish and belongings with you.”
Ellie followed her classmates as they filed out of the room, and suddenly, as if someone had just turned up the volume, noise erupted in the narrow hallway.
“It’s so unfair! I spent so long studying galvanic cells and they weren’t even on the exam!”
“At least you knew what to write for the extended response.”
“Not like there’s anything I can do about it now.”
The voices enveloped her, and for a moment, she was paralysed. The phrases stung and tasted bitter.
“It’s all over!”
“Never again.”
“I never have to think about it again.”
And finally, the thought that had been present in her mind for what seemed like forever, bubbled to the surface. Never again would she walk these hallways, chatting and laughing with friends about homework and teachers. Never again would she walk out of a high school exam room, bursting with things to share and discuss. Never again would she be a part of the class she had belonged to for the greater part of eternity.
It made her dizzy and nauseous. She breathed heavily, as if she had just run a great distance.
She had waited for this moment for months, years even, ever since the day in high school when she realised that there was a whole world out there to discover and explore. She had counted down the days, the minutes, until her final exam would be over and she would be free. She had made plans to celebrate this fantastic day, when she graduated from the world of homework and level tests forever.
But she had never acknowledged the inevitable – that while she was leaving the frustrating timetable and subjects, she was also leaving behind her childhood, fragments of herself she could never reclaim.
She’d known she’d be leaving this world grown up, somewhat. But she never expected to be leaving it alone.

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