"It's almost seven, Cal. Are you ready?" Callie was still sitting on her bed, staring out the window at the blizzard that had started.
"So much for three o'clock."
Tracey put her head into the room. "Cal?"
"It's snowing."
"Wow."
Callie turned to face Tracey. "Call the school. Let them know you're not going to be able to make it."
"But I have finals. I have to take my French final today."
"We're not going down the mountain until it stops snowing. I'm not getting caught on route one-ten in six feet of snow. The truck can't do that."
"I can't not go."
"You can't go, either. Physically, there's no safe way to make it down the mountain, and I am not risking life and limb so you can take some stupid test they will let you make up anyway. Now, go call your fucking principal before I have an aneurysm." She shook her head, "Fuck's sake, T."
"What if they won't let me make it up?"
"Tracey, you're the gem of that goddamn school. They'd bend over backward to wipe your ass, if you asked them to." She leaned across the bed to get the cordless phone off her nightstand. "Here, call."
"Sometimes, you're impossible. You know that? You're just goddamn impossible!"
"I'm impossible? You're the one who wants to traipse down a fucking mountain in a snowstorm to take a test you'll be able to make up in three days."
"You don't understand; I'm ready now. I won't know half this shit tomorrow, and then I'll have to do this all over again."
"T, you know French. You're just nervous. And don't say I don't understand. That was my whole academic life." Callie stood up and walked to her desk for a cigarette. "I'm going to tell you something vital, T. I'm going to give you the key to student life: It doesn't amount to shit in the end. Think about it. Look at me, for fuck's sake." She lit her cigarette, and took one hit off it. "My GPA didn't drop below 4.5 after my freshman year of high school, and look at me now. I'm a college dropout, living in bumfuck Alaska, and I am no different than I was five years ago. Stop treating your education like it's some kind of impossible deadline. If you don't take this test today, you'll be fine, because you'll know you can take it after the weekend, once it begins to thaw. Just calm down and go watch television, or something. You still like that shit, right?"
"Just because you're a burnout doesn't mean I will be. I'm not you. And yeah, so what if I like TV? It's not like I don't work hard enough to deserve a little television now and again. I work my ass off to be a good student. It's not a natural gift, like the one you threw away. I work for it, Callie. I work so hard."
"For Christ's sakes, I didn't say you don't work hard. I know you do, and I am trying to tell you it's all in vein. It won't mean a damn thing once you're out of this town, once you're not a student anymore. It doesn't mean shit once you're past twenty. Don't let it become you, T. Don't define yourself as a prodigious student. You won't have anything left once they are through with you."
"You're just bitter because you lost it. You just want me to give up on this so I'll fuck up and get stuck here with you forever. You just want me to be like you. Well, I don't want to be anything like you."
"Let's not fight, okay? I just can't take you to school, and you can't borrow the truck to rove the mountain. For god's sake, look outside. Jesus, T, it's like talking to a brick wall with you."

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