The summer holidays were almost done, and CXC results were ready. In those days you had to go to the school and collect your results, and watch some students celebrate,while others cried. He arrived at JC around 10:00 am, and true to form, guys were celebrating, while some were looking as if their favourite video game had been taken away. The lines were long, so he had to wait a bit. Of course he saw some of his classmates, and those that had passed all their subjects stopped by and started to brag. He was very scared, knowing that he may have failed a few of his subjects, due to his lack of preparation, helping others instead of focusing on his own studies. He was now at the top of the line and gave the teacher who was issuing the results his name. His jaw dropped when she told him that he had only passed 3 of his six subjects. He was devastated. He kept replaying in his mind what his father had said, "if you fail your exams then you will have to work with my mechanic". He didn't speak to anyone, he just looked around as if in a daze. The only good result for him was in history, as his history teacher had said he would fail miserably, but he had used her words to challenge him to pass. That would be the way he would motivate himself in the future, by using the negatives of people to inspire him. His day was off to a bad start, and he tried to figure out how he would make his parents understand his failures in the other three subjects. It wasn't that he had failed badly, he had missed the pass mark by getting C's. In those days, when you sat the CXC you had to get at least two B's to be guaranteed a passing grade, now all that has changed. In those days, passing the CXC meant you had to get a grade 1 or 2, now they have made grade 3 a passing grade. Apart from him failing three of his six subjects, he was now in a terrible position, he would have to resit his fifth form year, and would not be able to go to sixth form. He wondered which option was the worse. In looking back at his exams, he couldn't understand how he had failed English or Mathematics, in the mock exams he had gotten grade 1's for those subjects, they were like his best subjects in school. All those times spent helping others instead of studying for himself, came back to haunt him. He would learn a valuable lesson that day. He took the long journey home, instead of his usual short-cut, he walked an extra 15 minutes to get home. It was mid-day and his parents were still at work, so he had some time to prepare himself. He knew his father would likely put the belt to his rear end. He wasn't worried anymore though,he thought to himself, "there is nothing I can do now to change the situation, I have already failed the three, I just have to move on."