Delilah put her hand on the door knob and took a deep breath before entering the classroom. She glanced at the professor, who gave her a stern look. Luckily, he was still talking. The test had not yet begun. Relief flooded over her.

“I have to say,” the professor said to the group. “I expected more from this class. The grades on these papers accurately reflect my disappointment.” He was making rounds, passing out the papers they’d turned in last week.

Delilah hurried to her seat and readied herself. She was still hot and flushed from the encounter with the jerk in the hall. What was his problem? Most people would just say sorry and move on in a situation like that. The anger still boiled in her veins. What a complete asshole.

When the professor reached her, she smiled at him. Any other professor, she would have apologized. But with Mr. Grayson, it could make things worse. Better to not bring it up unless he did.

“Perhaps we need to leave the house a little earlier, yes?” he asked as he set her paper on her desk, face down.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I apologize.”

He pressed his lips together and continued to the next student. That could have been so much worse.

She flipped her paper over and the number at the top in bright red ink hit her in the gut. She needed an 88% on this paper to keep her GPA up for her scholarship. This paper had received an 83%.

Delilah earned decent grades. Usually As and Bs. Maybe the occasional C if the class was extra hard. In college especially, she’d made sure to do her best. Of course, she worked so much to help her family out, that her best was limited to the time she had to spend on school work.

She did some fast calculations in her head. Based on what percentage of their grade this test was worth, even if she scored a perfect, it would still be too low. And even though she felt confident in the material, earning a perfect score would be nearly impossible.

She flipped through the paper, looking at Mr. Grayson’s notes, seeing where she went wrong. As she read comments like, “Weak argument,” “Not enough support,” and “Too wordy,” she felt like he was nitpicking. This was a good paper. It’d been her favorite of the whole semester. She’d expected an easy A. That 88% percent she needed should have been no problem.

She didn’t have time to think too much about it right now. The test papers were being handed out. She had to concentrate so she didn’t make things worse with a terrible test grade. She’d figured out the paper later.

By the time the class had ended, Delilah decided she’d just go talk to the professor. She took her time packing up so that the room would be mostly empty. Then she approached his desk.

“Mr. Grayson?” she started, “I was hoping I could talk to you about the most recent paper? I—”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Argentums,” he said. “but this is not a good time to talk. I’ll need you to make an appointment.”

“Sure.” She smiled at him and left the classroom.

He wanted to be like that? To play this game when she knew he had free time after their class? Okay. She wasn’t going to give up easily. She headed right for his office to wait for him.

She opened the door to the waiting room just outside the professor’s office. One other student sat there as well. Then she noticed who it was. The jerk from before class. Instantly, her foul mood turned worse.

She dropped her books down hard to get his attention and glared at him. “So nice to see you again,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “I’m sorry about earlier. It was my fault. I was in a bad mood.”

This surprised her. She’d thought he was an asshole through and through. Maybe she’d misjudged him.

“Oh.” She sat down and took a moment to respond. “Thanks for apologizing. If I hadn’t been distracted, I might have seen you sooner, too. I guess I didn’t have the best morning, either. And my last class just made it even better.” She let out a sigh and crossed her arms as she sat back.

“You have Grayson?” he asked.

“Yes. Art history. You?”

“Advanced art history.”

That made sense if he was a senior. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the art history type.”

“What is the art history type?” He chuckled. “I had the same thought about you, actually. Too clean for an art student.”

She laughed and gestured to her clothing. “Work uniform.”

“Ah. That explains it. I have no excuse. I just enjoy learning about art.”

“It’d be much more enjoyable if Mr. Grayson wasn’t such a hard professor. I might lose my scholarship. I have to get him to give me another chance.”

“I’m in the same situation,” he said. “The grade I received on my last paper was much lower than expected.”

“Me too. It was a good paper! Definitely A worthy.”

“Yeah? Mind if I take a look?”

She hesitated, but what did she have to lose? The paper had already been turned in. She handed it to him and he read it quickly.

He handed it back to her, nodding. “It’s a good paper.”

“Thanks.”

“So, here’s what we’ll do. When he comes in, follow my lead. We’ll plead our cases together since we’re asking for the same thing.”

“Okay. Sure.” It couldn’t hurt to have another person on her side.

“Christian, by the way. Christian Ruiz.” He stuck out his hand.

She shook it and said, “I’m Delilah Argentums.”

When the door opened and Mr. Grayson entered, Christian got to his feet. Delilah did the same.

“Mr. Grayson,” he said. “I apologize for not making an appointment, but I wonder if we might have just a minute or two of your time.”

Mr. Grayson gave them a stern look but crossed his arms. “I have one minute. That’s all.”

“Thank you,” Christian said. “We’ve both received grades for recent papers that we feel could be higher. We were hoping that you would have mercy on us and let us try again. We both take art very seriously, and I’d hate to think that our performance in such an important class would be reflected by such a poor grade. I expect more of myself and I know Delilah does as well. Would you give us another chance to improve our grades?”

“I’m not in the habit of letting students keep trying until they get the grade they desire. You should do your best work the first time.”

“Absolutely,” Christian said. “I couldn’t agree more. I did what I thought was my best. But now I realize that I could have done better. I know Delilah feels the same. We both want to do our best at all times, and to have our grades reflect that.”

Mr. Grayson turned his attention to Delilah. “Ms. Argentums, you couldn’t even be bothered to get to class on time. Why should I make an exception for you?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Christian jumped in.

“I'm afraid that’s my fault, sir,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention and carelessly bumped into her in the hall. It took some time to gather her books and things and get to class. She would not have been late if it weren’t for me.”

Delilah was surprised he’d go that far. But she thought she should at least say something for herself, and not let him do all the talking. “It was an accident. But you’re right, Mr. Grayson. I should have left sooner so that I was early instead of just being on time. I am finding it difficult to juggle work and school in my first semester, but I want to improve. I need to. Redoing this paper is a chance for me to show you that I can do better.”

Mr. Grayson’s eyebrow lifted slightly. He made eye contact with each of them. “Two days.” Then he turned and disappeared into his office.

Delilah let out a huge sigh of relief and dropped back into her seat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t think I could have done that so eloquently. I probably would have been too mad and told him off or something.”

“That’d never work with a man like him. If you don’t make him feel like he’s the God of his class, he’ll just make sure you know it some other way.”

She picked up her things and stood. She had even more work to do now that she had to redo this paper. And in two days. “Thanks again. I really needed this.”

“No problem. Glad to help us both out.”

She smiled and turned from him. Before she could exit the room, he called her name.

“I was wondering—unless you’re headed to work now—if you’d like to grab a coffee? Maybe we can discuss our new papers and come up with ideas together.”

“Actually, I was just going to head to the cafe to do school work. I don’t work for another few hours.”

“Great.” His face spread into a glowing smile. “Shall we then?” He opened the door and she walked out.