The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Thirteen

Maddie

An American high school party. I feel like I'm in a movie.

I'll be going to my first proper 'rager' I suppose tonight. At home, most of our parties were just drinking in fields and a few speakers.

I still haven't a clue what I'm gonna wear: I could go kinda slutty and basically wear just a shirt with a few cutouts, or jeans and a crop top, or maybe a dress. I mean what's the standard party outfit etiquette here?

"Ms O'Brien!" The substitute algebra teacher, Mr Adams calls out to me, "Could you please do the equation on the board for me?"

Crap. I haven't done it yet.

I nod at him and stand up and walk towards the whiteboard which has the equation, 6x2+ 5x + 1, on it.

No sweat. Really easy.

I stare at it for a minute before writing out my answer. I can feel the eyes of every student in the class burning into the back of my head.

Finally I settle on;

6 x 2 +5x+1 = 6 x 2 +3x+2x+1

= 3x(2x + 1) + 1(2x + 1)

= (3x + 1)(2x + 1).

I feel like Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical.

He turns to the board and reads it for a moment before nodding at me, "Correct."

I take that as my leave and sit back down. Penelope mitched this class so that she and Brooke could go and get an extra hour for lunch at this restaurant in Dorchester that they've gone to every year for each of their birthdays since they were 13.

The rest of the class drags on for the rest of the period and when the bell finally rings I don't think I could've jumped up out of my chair faster than I do.

But alas my happiness of getting to leave the class and go to lunch is short-lived by some girl stopping me at the door.

The girl reaches up to about my shoulders cause I'm pretty tall, she has long thin black and blue box braids and deep black eyes too.

She smiles at me, "Hey. You're Madeleine O'Brien, correct?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Great. My name is Evelyn Davis, my pronouns are they/them and I'm really sorry I haven't been able to introduce myself yet and properly welcome you but I've been at my grandparent's house. I'm sorry, you're probably thinking Who Is This Crazy Person?." They laugh at themself. "I'm your roommate, I hope the room wasn't too messy for you. I try to keep it clean but I would've cleaned it properly if I knew I was getting a roommate."

I shake my head, "No, it's fine. Your side of the room is ten times cleaner than mine anyway."

They said their name was Evelyn. Oh crap, my friends just warned me to steer clear of this person and now I'm their roommate. I really fucking hope that they were all just exaggerating and that they're not as bad as they all made her seem.

So far it does seem that they were all just being dramatic though.

They smile at me, "Okay, so other than to introduce myself, I do have a question to ask you."

"Ask away then."

"Not to sound like a stalker but since I've been back I have been watching you. And again I hold my hand to my heart and say that I'm not a stalker,"

They put their hand to their heart and smile at me. "But I think that you seem like a very smart girl and I am the captain of the schools' math club and one of our members moved schools so now we only have 5 members. This is enough to compete but I always like to have a few people as potential backups. Half of the people in the club were seniors last year so our numbers have been drastically low since then, and a few of us are graduating this year."

Mathletes? I didn't even think that was a thing outside of the movies.

"So you want me to join the maths club?"

They nod, "Yes."

"I'm sorry but I don't think I can. I have a really busy schedule as is and I've just agreed to tutor someone so it's gonna be even heavier than usual, so I really am sorry but I'm gonna have to decline."

"Really? Damn, I just missed my chance. Are you sure? Also totally unrelated but would you say that peer pressure works on you?"

I laugh, "No I wouldn't say it does. But yeah I am sorry, under normal circumstances I definitely would join but I really just can't."

They shake their head, "Okay, that's fine. I understand completely. Let me know if you change your mind and I suppose I'll be seeing you later on then."

We smile at one another and walk our separate ways.

The rest of the day was a drag. I barely did anything besides watching Grey's Anatomy and eating crisps and Diet Coke. Evelyn came back around 7 pm and we talked for a bit and just continued watching the show. Turns out they've seen every season of the show 8 times. Which is insane cause there are 18 seasons of this thing. I've only seen it twice and I thought that was a lot.

Around 10 o'clock the RA knocks on the door to tell us lights out, which basically nobody does.

We say night to each other and put our headphones on and scroll on our phones for a bit. I'm thinking about what I'm gonna wear to Penelope's party tomorrow and I realise that I'm meant to be getting the train back into the city tomorrow to catch up with my mam. Crap.

I open the contacts app and find my mam's name and ring her. She answers on the second ring. "Maddie? Are you okay? It's pretty late, shouldn't you be asleep? Has something happened?"

"No, mam, everything's fine. I just wanted to ask you a question."

I can feel her eyebrows pulling together all confused, she must think I'm about to ask for drugs or something cause I never really ever call her, just text. "Okay sure. But be as quick as you can though baby, cause I'm about to go into surgery."

"Oh okay, good luck with that. But I just wanted to see if it was okay with you if I didn't come back to the apartment for the weekend. I promise I will try my best for like every other one but it's just that a lot of the kids that I'm becoming friends with are staying for one of the girls' birthdays, so I just want to stay and get to know everyone a bit better, yano. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, Mads, that's fine. I've really got to go though, so I'll talk to you when I can and have fun with your new friends but remember to call Aébhin whenever you can."

"I know mam, I already talk to her like every 5 seconds. I'll call you tomorrow, love you, bye."

"Love you too, bye, bye, bye."

Guess that means I really do have to figure out what to wear then.