Let's have fun on this TGIF! A new short story for your enjoyment! Some of this is true and some of it has been embellished and some of it is definitely not true. The sentiment is all there, though. Have fun figuring it out! :)
I
Probability Like You
“Why do you keep
talking about him? Do you like him or
something?” my desk partner Stan teased me.
My heart took a
parabolic plunge to the floor. Did he
have to say it so loudly? So
jokingly? Right there, in the middle of
math class? Couldn’t he have waited five
minutes, like until after the bell rang? Couldn’t he have
waited until after the person in question, sitting a mere two rows behind us,
had shouldered his backpack and left the room?
I tried to keep my
facial ticks in check. I opened my mouth
twice in attempt to answer the question.
I could only manage a croak. “What?”
Stan repeated
himself. “Do you like Matt or
something?”
Great, he just
said my crush's name for everyone to hear. I wanted to hide under my
desk like a radicand under the roof of a square root symbol. My palms were sweating.
If he wasn’t
listening before, Matt was certainly listening now.
I toyed with the
pages of my math book. I shuffled my
homework over the desk. My legs twitched, and I could barely keep my feet rooted to the carpet. I could feel Matt’s eyes boring into back of
my skull. Was he waiting for my reply
like Stan was?
I squinted at Stan. “What did you say?”
“Oh, my god” Stan
set his No.2 pencil down and leaned against the plastic back of his
chair. “You like him! You totally do!”
Pinching my mouth
shut, I begged him to stop talking with only my eyes. I held them open so long, tears started
forming at the edges.
Stan laughed and pounded his desk. His huge
guffaws silenced the entire class.
Great. Now, everyone was staring at me. I was a floating point outside of the curve,
a red dot alone on the graph. Did
everybody know now?
I darted a glance
behind me and locked eyes with Matt.
In that second, I
knew he knew. In that second, I knew he
was figuring out when I stopped labeling him as a friend and began thinking of
him as a crush. In that second, I knew
our friendship would never be the same again.
I covered my blushing face. How did I get to
this unbearable, embarrassing moment?
I started my
freshman year with a new look—my parents bought me contact lenses—and a new
outlook—high school was a place for my social life to begin. I was determined to shed my shy
demeanor and make friends.
I auditioned for
the school play. I joined several
clubs. I approached three girls
gossiping in the library before school one day and stumbled into their clique—albeit
a book-club clique, but it was mine all the same. So far so good.
When I met Matt,
it was January. Because I wanted to try
out for the tennis team in the Spring, my first and second semester schedules
were not the same, and I was transferred into Mr. Moskowitz’s ninth-grade algebra
class. Matt was my desk partner,
since his last name was alphabetically next to mine.
At first, he
only talked to me to explain Mr. Moskowitz’s picky rules: headers on homework was
always Name, Date, Class, Assignment; he hated when students wrote on the back
of paper; if paper didn’t have three-ring binder holes, students were required
to punch them; no restroom breaks, period.
Then, Matt took
to pointing out students in the class.
Since I was the only transfer, all of the students knew each other
already. He explained that Sally in
the back of the room secretly chewed gum, a substance banned by Mr. Moskowitz. Charles, who sat right behind us, his real name
was Lindsay. Lindsy, the tall girl with
doe eyes, was super smart. And Stan was
the class clown.
After the first test
of the semester, Matt realized that I was just as smart as Lindsy. He took advantage of it, but I didn’t mind.
It was like
someone put the factorial exclamation point behind my formula. My social life exploded. I suddenly had someone to call on the
phone. I suddenly had someone to pass
notes to. I suddenly had a close guy
friend; I’d never had one before.
Somewhere between
chatting in math class and waving good-bye as we waited for our separate school buses, I began to think about him all the
time.
Would Matt call
tonight for help on the linear equations worksheet? What should I ask him if he came by my locker
at lunch? He looked particularly cute in
that maroon t-shirt with the stripes.
I wanted him to be
my Gilbert Blythe, my Todd Spencer, my Logan Bruno, my Patrick Long, my Ned
Nickerson!
After Mr.
Moscowitz switched up his seating chart at the end of the quarter, I was seated
next to Stan, and Matt was two rows behind.
I was only concerned that Matt would be staring at the back of my head
for the entire 45 minutes of algebra. Would
he think I was pretty if I wore my hair in a braid? A bun?
A new scrunchie?
It had already
been two months of hard crushing and I’d managed to keep it a secret—except
from my clique of book-club nerds in the library. I labeled my crush as an imaginary
feeling that never needed to be acted upon.
But, just like
imaginary numbers are not really imaginary, imaginary feelings cannot be kept
hidden forever. It took Stan to expose
my secret.
The bell rang.
Matt rushed out
of the classroom first. A couple of guys
whistled catcalls after him.
I glared at Stan,
slamming my silver mechanical pencil onto my textbook with a slap. “Why did you say that? Why did you say that here in front of
Matt?”
Stan shrugged and
packed his things.
I stood to my full
61 inches.
He scurried off
like a fraction with a gigantic denominator.
As I stuffed my
book and notes into my backpack, I couldn’t figure out what to do about
Matt. Was it okay to stop by his
locker now that he knew that I “liked him liked him”? Was he still my friend?
At the end of the
day, he still wasn’t talking to me, but he did wave at me from the line at the
bus stop.
And then, he
called that night.
I smiled when I
heard the voice on the other end of the telephone. I curled the cord around my fingers and
haltingly said, “I’m sorry about today.”
He said, “The probability that I like you back
is increasing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment