“Life is full of deadlines and you have to learn how to deal with them. You’ll take this test and then you’ll realize how stupid it was to stress this much. Your life is not based on this. Never forget this, it’s just an exam.”

11:42 pm

Someone knocked on my door. I put my pencil on my desk, waiting for mom to come in.

I looked at the watch on my wrist that mom got me two years ago fro my birthday, and realized that I have been studying for four hours now, which made me  utterly relieved since I couldn't study properly yesterday. I had taken a nap, supposed to be for an hour or two, but ended up sleeping the whole day. 

I heard my white room door crack and kept looking at my book trying to understand what the sentence I just read meant.

“Honey, I think you should go to sleep now.” She said smiling gently at me.

Being a single mom and to note, an extremely busy one is not easy. My sessions, her job, my out-of-the-norm exam stress that she needs to deal with, her broken heart, and mine. Just everything she needs to constantly be handling is more than one can carry on their back and this is not fair if you ask me. I love her, she’s the only person in this world that I can hold onto, possibly the only person who makes me consider keep breathing, and I love her for that.

I faked a weak smile back. “Okay mom, I’ll go in a couple minutes.”

“I love you.” She said smiling at me looking straight at my eyes since she always tells me that, it is not the mouth that speaks, it’s the eyes. She always gives her full attention to you when you speak and it gives you the vibe that you actually may not be telling her about the dress you saw in the mall today, but making a love confession to her.

“And I love you back,” I said, giving her an assuring smile, which I was %100 sure that wasn’t enough to trick her.

I watched as she slowly closed the door. I got rid of my fake happy look and went back to the stressed one.

                                                                                        ***

I hit the alarm clock and check the time with my half-closed eyes. 

7:02 am. A smile spread across my face as I made my way back to the pillow. "Just 15 minutes." I murmured to myself.

I hated having to wake up early, like every other human on this world, I simply didn't understand how people get to wake up before the sun rises for a morning run, like how come their body doesn’t need as much sleep as mine does? Because it's the only thing my body seems to want.

I was –as always- too tired to consider waking up and getting ready for school, unconsciously I drifted back to sleep, telling myself that ‘I’m so dead for doing this’.

I opened my eyes ever so slowly, realizing that I actually got a good night sleep for the first time in weeks, free from nightmares, extra home works, and procrastination.

But I also realized that I was so close to being late, or in other words, judging from the digital clock on my nights' stand, the time was 7:48

With a sleepy voice, I started muttering “Oh God no, please no” I stood up ignoring the dizziness of my head and making my way to the bathroom.

All I had time for was, washing my face, brushing my teeth, pulling my hair up into a ponytail, which thankfully is naturally straight so I didn’t even need to comb through it and wear my school uniform.

And yes, this happens almost every day, like a routine, because I like sleeping but nothing can ever make me skip a single class, so I was used to this by now.

I knew I couldn’t possibly be at school on time if İ chose to take the bus, so İ dragged my mom along to drop me at school.

                                                               ***

I ran to my math class and got seated before the teacher came in. A smile got its place my face as I thought how I made it to the class on time.

I hurriedly opened my books and got ready for the lesson. As always, everyone in the class was speaking loudly, until the teacher came in. He stepped in the class with an unusual smile on his face, that looked way too fake, but him trying to fake a smile made me appreciate his efforts thinking how he glares at us every day. That should be tiring.

But when my eyes followed his eyes, I saw a guy looking down at his hands, which as I was assuming was a transfer student.

I knew what a transfer 'boy' meant for girls, it was a possibility of a new guy to salivate for, and let me tell you, girls liked this possibility like a dog likes its chewing toy. I turned to my right to see Min and silently laughed when I saw her straightening her shirt and fixing her hair.

Then she saw me staring at her and mouthed "What?" which a laughed at again and with that I turned back to my book.

"Say hi to your new friend! He just moved here so be kind to him," he turned to motion the new guy standing right behind him, loo