Keefe tapped Sophie on the shoulder. She turned around to face him.
"Ok, let's make a deal," he proposed.
"I'm listening," she told him. "Tell me."
"Ok, so," he pulled out the notes from English class. "I need help studying for the ELA test coming up. If my grade doesn't come up, my dad is going to kill me."
Sophie held up her hand to cut him off. "Hold on. Don't you have an eighty-nine in there?"
He nodded. "Like I said, it needs to come up. I remember you saying you were having trouble with the math concept we're learning right now. Soooo, I was wondering if I could come over and we could just swap our knowledge."
"That's fine." She placed her book in her locker. "Are you taking the bus, or do you want to ride with me."
"I'll ride with you, makes life easier," Keefe decided.
After school, they rode home together and settled in Sophie's room on the bed. Sophie was wedged in the corner her bed was pushed up against. Her knees were pulled up into her chest. Keefe was lying at the foot of the bed, holding his notebook above his face, just waiting for disaster.
"So," Sophie started. "The independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence. The dependent clause can't."
"And you connect them with a comma, right?" Keefe clarified.
"Correct. What do you use to connect two independent clauses?"
"Ummm," he pondered. "Colon?"
"You're close."
"Semi-colon!"
"Correct!" Sophie gave him a high five. "I think that's enough studying for ELA."
"Agreed," Keefe sighed. "I really don't like that class."
"Same with math." She reached across the bed to grab her notebook.
He tried to sit up, but instead, the notebook he was holding fell on his face. Sophie snorted. He rubbed his nose before finally sitting up.
Keefe scooted closer to her. Sophie put the calculator between them. They started to work out the problems together.
After the fifth confusing problem, Sophie groaned. "Ugh. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense."
"Yes, it does," Keefe insisted. "Here." He took the pencil from her and reached over her arm to write out the problem.
"Ok, but how did you get something different? I did the same steps."
"Nope. I did it differently. See this step here?" He tapped on a specific part of the problem.
"Yeah, but..." She squinted and tilted her head. "That's not the steps the teacher taught."
"It's not," Keefe agreed. "But that just makes it confusing. I find this easier."
"Ok..." Sophie peered at her other notes. "This works on all of them?"
"Yup."
He grabbed the other scrap sheet to work out the other problems. He had scooted closer to Sophie.
They had been closer before, of course. But... holy crap, he had changed over the summer. She didn't mind it, besides the fact it distracted her sometimes.
If she looked too long, she was afraid of making it weird. But she made it weird anyway because the second they made eye contact, she'd look away.
She hated not knowing how to act around him anymore! It's not like anything changed. Did it?
No. It didn't.
He was still her best friend. Only. No more. There was no way he'd ever like her. Not that she liked him like that.
Did she?
He looked her in the eyes again as he explained the steps to the math problem. She felt her breath hitch.
She forced herself not to break eye contact until he went to look back at the problem.
Oh gosh. This was going to be an issue. Big time.
The next day, it was time for the ELA test. Sophie was able to see Keefe across the room during the test. It was almost adorable to see his little faces of understanding on the questions he was able to get right, now.
But Sophie was still stuck on another topic in her brain. She had always thought he was decent looking. But now that he had started to grow into his facial features, he looked really cute. She didn't know how to react to that.
Her best friend she'd known for nearly ten years. She was probably just going crazy, she'd snap out of it eventually.
Except she didn't. She only became hyper aware of it as weeks went on. She hated how awkward she felt around him now. It made it hard to joke with him like before.
Plenty of people in the grade were starting to date. Maybe she could find someone else to distract her from Keefe. But... that felt wrong, too.
What was she going to do?
YOU ARE READING
Broken Heart/Broken Mind
Random(Human AU) Sophie and Keefe met in the children's hospital when they were little. Because of how long they were confined to the four walls of the hospital, they became very close during their stay. As the years pass, they wind up being in the same c...
