Reading Is Hard Novels & Stories

You have to read. Get up. I groaned, sitting up and staring at nothing in particular. I was beyond exhausted. To the point where I could cry. I hadn’t had any food today. I picked up my books and began studying. An hour later and I was still at the starting point. I couldn’t understand a thing. I grabbed my hair in my hands and strained my eyes to look at the book, yet I couldn’t see a word on it. It was blurry. Why? I didn’t have time for this.

I’d nearly destroyed them all earlier in the year with the fire, but maybe there was still something I could find. “Where was I?” I mumbled, flipping through the book. There. I recognized that picture. Pressing my finger to the words, I started to struggle through the sentences. Reading had never been easy for me, though I loved to read. The tiny print and the archaic language of this book made it even more difficult.

Rhea blinked. “Yeah, and we only made it halfway through one book!” Anna exclaimed as they both stood up and dusted off their clothes. “Ancient books are hard to read,” Rhea said with a chuckle. “The paper’s so faded, and the language is ridiculously formal and cryptic.” “No kidding. I had to squint the whole time,” Anna replied. “My eyes feel like they’ve been doing pushups.” They both laughed. “Let’s go get smoothies. I need something cold and fruity to recharge my brain,” Anna said, dramatically placing a hand on her forehead.

I just hope going back into teraphy wouldn't bring back memories I'll like to not think about. Oh well. ****** Just a few more days before exams would be finally over, lord. I can't fucking wait. Reading for exams is freaking hard, whoever disagrees with me is an asshole. Yup, Silas disagreed with me, so that made him an asshole. And he's always rubbing it into my face of how it's so easy for him to read and understand unlike me who have to read, concentrate and still summarise before understanding anything, which makes him a bigger asshole on a whole different level.

“No, studying isn’t easy. I will agree with you on that. I hate reading because it’s so hard.” “Reading? That was the simple part for me. I remembered everything when tests came around. I would study and study, but it didn’t help me at all. I either memorized it forever or forgot it instantly. It’s frustrating reading a paragraph three times. Knowing you read every word and then not knowing the meaning of what you just read. Everything took me longer to do than everyone else. That’s one reason I rarely left my room. I couldn’t keep up with the workload if I did.” “You’re just saying that. Your grades never reflected that.”

Today she was in her morning lecture and I was in an empty classroom on the second floor of the arts building with my textbook open in front of me and my notes spread across the desk and my pen actually moving across the page. “The only way is to read your book.” Professor Marcus always said. I was reading the book. It was slow and painful and about thirty percent of it made sense to me on the first pass. It was not my natural habitat, this kind of quiet focused effort. I kept wanting to check my phone or find a reason to be somewhere else. But I stayed and I kept the pen moving and told myself that this was what people who wanted things did. They sat in empty classrooms, mornings like this

“Then try this one.” He had written so many difficult words, ones I really had to work hard just to read. I was struggling to pronounce them properly, and I was sweating from the effort. We spent almost two hours on it, and my jaw was aching from all the reading, but I was already seeing improvement. I was proud of that, even if I was exhausted. “What are you two doing?” We both froze in place, startled by the interruption. I turned toward the doorway, recognizing the presence immediately.

“What!? Come on, go on, keep on reading, you wont leave your letters halfway will you?” “No" I replied slowly and shook my head. “I want you to read em, please read em for me.... I can't read em, I find it difficult to read em, please…” I added, placing the letters on her lap. “Styles, you are trying, just go on and keep on reading” She replied; dropping them back on my laps. “I said I can't" “you can” “No! I can't” “of course you can” “I said I can't bitch!!!”

An extra hour every day would make all the difference. I always pretended to Jace that everything was fine because I didn’t want him to know how hard I struggled to make ends meet. Jace would help me, I knew he would, but I couldn’t lay this burden at his door. Secretly, I was glad that Josh had let me down for this weekend so that I hadn’t had to go out with Jace and his friends last night – I was drowning in debt and my credit card would bottom out soon. Sometimes I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. It seemed like no matter how hard I worked, how much I strived to be a great mom, there was always something in the way making it feel like an uphill battle with me pulling

“All you have to do is pass.” ****** Studying was hard, way harder than I had thought. I didn’t know if it was because I’d taken so long from school and had forgotten the basis of some subjects and had to start learning all over or if it was because my brain was finding it difficult to learn, I just knew that I was having a hard time understanding some of the subjects Henry, my tutor had taught me. Especially calculus. But that doesn’t mean I was going to give up, my exams were in less than four weeks and I have to do well if I wanted to get into college.