Walking up the stairs, I can feel my chest growing tighter. With each step closer I am to my counselor’s office, I am a step closer to getting news that could make or break my day. After the informational meeting earlier in the week, I need to know my cumulative GPA. Last school year, my GPA was not high enough to meet the minimum requirement. Now, I need to know if I have any hope of joining the exclusive club.

I sit down and feel the chair sink under my weight, my emotions sinking as well. Watching my counselor type away at her computer in order to find a number, below a 4.0 I am positive, that decides if I can fulfill one of my goals for high school is suffocating me. The look on her face tells me, before she does, I have no hope.

“Your cumulative GPA is a 3.3,” she says writing notes down on the paper in the overstuffed binder that is ever-present on her desk. I watch as the papers shift under her hand and listen to the pages crinkle, my obvious devastation being written down in black ink.

“Is there any way to pull my GPA up, at all?” I wince at the high pitch and desperate tone to my voice. I can feel my throat closing and know that the tears welling up in my eyes are going to start falling soon.

“Let me see, are you taking any semester courses?” She says pulling out a calculator and bringing up more files on her computer. I can tell she knows, without a doubt, I will not be able to join NHS no matter how badly I want to be a member. I waited too long.

After countless combinations of grades and various number crunches we both come to the reality of my low cumulative GPA. My fate has been sealed; I will never have a cumulative GPA higher than a 3.4 while at school Academy no matter how hard I tries. When the new information of my lack on accomplishment finally sets in the damn breaks.

My tears are hot as they run down my face and my eyes are burning more intensely than ever before. My chest is aching, and only when I finally have to take a gasp of air do I realize I had stopped breathing. I can hear my counselor trying talk to me, but I feel as if I have cotton in my ears. My hands grip my skirt tightly, clinging to something so that I can avoid digging my nails into my skin which is sadly a habit I have when greatly upset.

“I wish I could blame someone else. I wish I could say that my GPA is low because of the grading scale, but that is not true! My grades are all my fault. I was the one who failed to do all her homework. I was the one who failed to try as hard as I could have. I failed do what I was supposed to in the past and I am suffering the consequences now. I want to blame someone else so badly but I cannot do that because I am the one who failed doing what was necessary. I had no clue when I started here I would want to do NHS,” I say with my voice breaking the whole time. I bring my hands up to wipe ruthlessly at the tears staining my cheeks. I can feel how sticky my face is and futilely try to rid myself of the feeling with the rough sleeve of my sweater.

My counselor gives me advice on how to cope with this news that has shaken me so deeply. I try to listen and take her advice, I truly do, but I find myself stuck in my own head. Regret is pooled in my stomach and stewing the worst feeling, which I am sure will return every time a friend mentions the elite honor society. I flash back to writing my goals essay. I remember foolishly thinking that I could magically make NHS a reality for myself in just one year’s time. I have no chance; I sabotaged myself with the laziness that I still posses. A procrastination that plagues me to this day is the exact approach that has caused my failure.

I take a deep breath, finally, and feel air fill my lungs as I try not to make a sound. With or without NHS being a possibility, I want to do well in school. I want the 4.4 GPA that my classes allow me to have if I accomplish all As. I want the certificate of excellence that comes with straight As in all four quarters of the year. Most importantly, however, I want to be proud of what I am still able to accomplish while a student at school. I decide to make a new goal, one that I know I am able to accomplish. While a junior in high school I am going to be the best I can be. I am going to let go of the feelings that are pulling me down and turn them into motivators.

Sadly, even with my new goal in place, I continue to cry as sit in the soft chair. I know I must look a mess. I am aware of the senior that has come from nowhere to talk to my counselor, and even tries to talk to me, but I chose to ignore her. In that moment I decide I would rather seem rude than have someone I don’t know see my crying.

“I have to go to music class,” I say wiping away tears that are replaced only seconds later by new ones. If I thought that the pain in my eyes before was intense, now my eyes are completely on fire.

With her last words passing right through my consciousness into an abyss that will never reveal them to me, I leave my counselor’s office and make my way to the music room. Sadly, I walk into the room with tears still in my eyes. Yet, I feel as if I could stop soon and actually start to feel hope I will am sure to associate with my new goal of junior year. From now on, I will be my best with nothing holding me back.