Lonely Hearts ▹ Scott McCall ✓

1 ▹ Math is Essential

Darren understood her father's decision to move, more than she understood how Beacon Hills High School didn't have any AP classes. She spent around fifteen minutes arguing with the office, but they kept telling her it was a small school so those classes would be too small.

This caused her to believe, at that moment, that the high school thought everyone at Beacon Hills were idiots. Which could be true, this was her first day of school after all... but she doubted that was the case.

She made her way to her locker where she picked out her used Algebra book. The school office was kind enough to put all her books in her locker when she visited yesterday. She was just thankful she didn't have to carry around a heavy backpack full of textbooks like her last school.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She slid it out of her jeans and read the message.

From Dad: Everything's fine right now. Went to the crime scene and didn't die. Love you, have a great day at school.

Darren glared at the text from her dad. Apparently, there was a murder last night. A family: a mom, a dad, and an older brother all got axed to death with only one member of the family to live. The youngest brother made it to the hospital with little to none physical damage. Mental damage was unknown to Darren. Though really, if that happened to Darren she'd be in a state of panic and denial. So, she could only assume the young boy wasn't exactly stable right now.

The brunette girl tucked her phone back into her pocket as she turned the corner towards the door. Much to her luck, she nearly ran head first into a wide-eyed girl. The girl watched Darren for a moment with slit eyes, before rounding around her and rushing away from the class.

Darren didn't bother to say anything as the girl ran off. She continued her way into the class and noticed the equations all over the blackboard. Perhaps the girl was overwhelmed by the math equations, Darren thought to herself as she sat at the first open seat she noticed.

"I hate math," a loud and angry voice spoke, "it's pointless."

She glanced over at the door and saw the girl who walked off being directed back in by a boy with little moles all over his face.

"It's school and school is important. Math is essential." They sat down, sitting across from Darren.

"To what?" She shot back at the boy, still hugging her books.

Quickly the boy opened his mouth, "knowing how much to tip at restaurants."

The girl in front of Darren with strawberry-blonde hair held the same face that Darren held. The look of you're an idiot. "And other less important things like medicine, economics, engineering..." Her voice was nothing but sarcastic and Darren couldn't help but smirk within her Algebra textbook.

"Tipping."

Darren finally knew why the school didn't have AP classes. It was because of people like this boy.

"All right, volunteers to the board." Mrs. Fleming spoke out, holding out her own textbook. She hardly glanced around, but Darren saw no volunteers. "Lydia. Darren. Malia."

Darren rolled her eyes as she made her way up to the board. She had met this teacher the other day when she was visiting and knew she wouldn't like her to begin with. Though she didn't have a problem with solving the answer on the board, it was one of the simplest questions she's seen this year, but if the teacher just tells people to come up to solve the problem, that's not exactly volunteering — according to a dictionary.

As Darren picked up the chalk she heard the girl who obviously didn't like math speak. "I didn't volunteer."

"You did now." The teacher responded. "To the board."