What You Don't See (wlw)

[10] Who do you like?

Verity

"I might just destroy binomial expansion and then I won't ever have to deal with it again." Amy sighs next to me, retyping one of the questions from a worksheet we were given in class today. It was due next week but Amy said she wanted to start it early to get ahead and I pretty much wanted it over and done with as well.

We were sat in a random classroom that Mrs Allwood had allocated to Amy because she wanted a place to work that wasn't the noisy common room after college. As Henrietta was pretty much busy every day due to multiple clubs, Amy had invited me to join her instead.

"I'm in. How are we destroying it? With a hit-man or a car?" I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth because I thought they were lame but Amy burst out laughing.

"A hit-man would be awesome! Just this super serious guy going to kill loads of exam papers at Edexcel."

"Yes! I reckon security can't be that good - like he could just go in there and set fire to all of them pretty easily."

"You know what that's a pretty tight plan we've got here now, I like it a lot." We both laughed again and I had the same warm feeling I'd been experiencing all week. I looked up at Amy again, watching her as she beamed, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. I thought for the millionth time about how beautiful she was.

"We're all set then, no reason to do this worksheet any more." I declared, in part wishing it were true but also happy that it was false just so that I could spend this time with her. I'm pathetic, I'm fully aware.

"Yeah, although sadly I think it might just be a little too expensive." She sighed humorously "Have you done question seven yet? It's actually being such a pain in the arse."

"Oh yeah I've done that one." I looked over to my booklet where I'd written down my working, and then started to explain my thinking. The longer I went through it, the more hot my face became, and the more I believed my thinking was completely stupid. I went slowly though, allowing her to go over the raised dots of her worksheet in braille so she could remind herself of certain parts of the question.

"Oh my god that literally makes so much sense now!" She said at the end, as she finished typing up the answer on her laptop. "You're sneaky you know."

"What?" The phrase scared me a lot. Sneaky? What does that mean? Does she hate me? The thoughts were racing through my head, again a massive amount of heat rushing to my face.

"You're so down on yourself about school and stuff and yet you're a little maths genius." I wasn't expecting that. I couldn't help but beam at the compliment, despite feeling like it wasn't all that true.

"I really don't think that's the case." I responded and she raised her eyebrows at me.

"You do physics as well right?"

"Unfortunately"

"Well there you go, you're good at maths."

"Really though I don't think that's true. It's like I can do the problems here in my own time but when I'm in class or whatever I feel like I have the intelligence of an average Love Island contestant." It was true; plus my physics teacher usually had it out for me and genuinely enjoyed humiliating me in class.

"Nah I get what you mean, although you can still do the questions so I'm not entirely convinced." She laughed "To be fair some of the Love Island contestants are actually pretty smart; there was that doctor on it a few years ago right?"

"I... don't know. I've never really seen it." I admitted. It wasn't that I was a snob that thought it was beneath me, but also I just hadn't really thought about bothering to watch it every night in the summer.

"Really?" She widened her eyes "We have to watch it! I'll introduce you to it"

"I mean, sure I guess. Though won't it be really boring for you if you've watched it already?"

"Nah I actually haven't watched this season yet because me and my friends were always doing something else and I can't really watch it on my own."

"How come?"

"It still doesn't have an audio description option and even though most of the show is just people talking to each other, it's still a little bit tricky keeping track of what's happening most of the time. "

"Ah okay yeah that makes sense." I felt bad for not making the connection myself; surely that was just common sense?

"But yeah anyway we should totally watch it together! It is trashy obviously but it's genuinely pretty fun to watch."

"You know what, sure I'll watch it with you." I laughed, and she smiled widely

"Amazing! Are you free tonight?"

XXX

We decided to go to Amy's house since it was easier, and I was avoiding my mother as usual. Mr Rivers welcomed me in happily and smiled genuinely when Amy said I was staying over for a bit.

"Okay you're gonna have to tell me who's actually fit in this one because I swear the guys especially always make themselves out to be absolute gods and they can't all be." Amy told me as she set up the program on her laptop. It was constantly talking to her, something I was slowly getting used to - along with her phone which pretty much made me jump every time it received a message. It was crazy how fast the speech was; literally five times normal, but I guessed if Amy had to use it all the time it would be easy to understand.

"I'll try my best." I responded, laughing "although to be honest if they have to go on about how good looking they are, they're either mid or they have nothing else going for them."

I don't know why I said that; it's not like I had anything going for me, not even looks. I didn't even really know boys at all - I guess that's what happens when you go to an all-girls high school. Granted there were a few boys at the sixth form but most of them stayed on at the boys school instead. Henrietta seemed to know them all, although she always stipulated that none met her standards to date.

"Yeah finding guys that actually have rizz on this show is surprisingly difficult some seasons."

"Rizz?"

"It's like... you know how they say someone has 'game' in America? Like that - basically they have a personality that can pull."

"Ahh that makes sense. Sorry I'm usually kind of... behind on stuff like that."

"Honestly don't worry about it - I'm very happy to be your resident urban dictionary haha."

The show started and then suddenly time began to melt away naturally, in a way where I could finally just relax. I explained what was going on to Amy to the best of my ability - something that I was undoubtedly getting a little better as it went on, although I still thought I was pretty shit at it. I kept forgetting their names, resorting to odd nicknames of stupid things each one of them had said at the start, much to Amy's amusement.

"Okay, so if you had to pick one right now, who would you go out with?" Amy asked me during the adverts. The question took me by surprise, not because I didn't think she'd ask me that, but because I'd never really thought about dating... well anyone. I couldn't even really make friends, why would anyone date me?

"Errr... I don't know I guess the guy who came in last is okay but err... I suppose it's probably the girl who said she hates white skinny jeans." The whole time it felt like my entire body was saying Amy to the question; none of the love island contestants, just Amy. This surprised me on a whole new level, whilst simultaneously leaving me horrified at the situation. Amy would never want to be with me and it made me feel like a creep fancying her in that way when she was literally being so nice to me all the time for reasons I didn't completely understand. I was going to have to get rid of these feelings as fast as I could.

"That's fair enough - they seem like the only nice ones right now for sure." She replied, while my stomach did front flips. Why was I like this?