New Girl on the Block

Chapter Twelve: Benjamin

"We're going to be doing a little project," Mrs. Voong says, causing groans and moans to ruble through the classroom. "Oh, don't be such gripey babies. You're sophomores, act like it," she says, and the complaints suddenly disappear. "Don't say a word or utter a sound until after you've left my classroom. You'll be going through various escape room puzzles with a pre-decided partner for the rest of the week. Once you're finished, I really don't care what you do, but! If a principal or an AP walks in this room, your phones need to be put away and you need to look busy. Understand?" She asks, and subtle mumbles of recognition fumble through the classroom.

Mrs. Voong calls out two students' names at a time, instructing us several times to wait until she's finished to move. I click a pen between my fingers, not really paying attention to the situation until she calls my name. "Ben," I look up, slightly startled, "and Helena." My eyes immediately float to the opposite side of the room where I see Helena looking up in the same manner as I was a moment ago. The surprise quickly drains from her eyes, and she goes back to doing something in her notebook.

When Mrs. Voong has reached her desk, she calls, "Okay! Be free! Have at it! Finish early and you get free time, but don't rush through this!" Everyone immediately starts moving. I look down, trying not to spill the contents of my mostly unzipped bag as I travel across the room. I bump into something and look up, meeting Helena's shining blue eyes. We're hardly inches apart, so close I can hear her quickened breaths.

"No fraternizing with your classmates, Benjamin Anderson! I don't care how pretty she is, sit your butt down and get to work before I come over there and pull the two of yas off each other!" Mrs. Voong says, her southern accent coming out with her stern tone. Helena has already moved away from me, diverting her eyes from mine in every possible way.

She sits back down at her desk, her cheeks a pinkish color, and I sit at the desk in front of her. I pull out the copy of the escape room and set it on Helena's desk next to her identical piece of paper. "Cool, so...wanna get started?" I ask semi-awkwardly.

"Mhm," is all Helena says, her eyes have returned to their exhausted and droopy state that they were in before class. We silently decide to do each problem on our own and compare answers. I don't argue with anything Helena says or does, seeing how tired and mentally drained she looks. "I got x equals fifty-three, what'd you get?" She asks, her soft voice causing me to smile without thought.

"Same," I say simply. She nods and goes on to the next problem. I do the same, and we work like this through the entire first page. That is until she's flicking her pencil between her fingers, biting anxiously at her bottom lip, and bouncing her leg so quickly it practically shakes the table. I can tell she doesn't understand the problem, and her eyes float across the question at least thirty times.

"Do you need help?" I ask, catching her off guard for a moment long enough for her to stop all three of her anxious movements. She looks up from her paper and into my eyes for only about a second. Then her eyes are fixated back onto the page. "No, it's okay. I got it, thank you," she says, bouncing her leg softer under the desk and flicking her pencil in her lap instead of in my line of sight.

She looks the question over at least a hundred times more. I've already solved it and begun working on the next problem. She looks from me to the paper to me and back down at her paper several times. Her eyes look like they're begging for her lips to ask for help while simultaneously warning her that if she were to do that, something terrible would happen.

I can't watch this any longer. I flip my paper to face her and explain the problem and my work by pointing at certain details with the top of my pencil. We come to the conclusion that she had simply been overthinking the problem and was working too hard to solve it.