Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 14

"Fuck off." Shane pushes my shoulder aside to pouring his entire body onto my book, "No fucking way you did that on your own."

It's beautiful, the amount of faith my friends have in me.

I tug Shane by his steadily overgrowing hair and push him back to his seat. Undeterred, he leans forward again to rip the notebook out of my hands.

The numbers and letters were smudged and darkened with a handwriting that falls in strong contrast against mine. The darkened, bold and confident figures put to shame my light, hesitant chicken scratches. There are still grey, rubber remnants on the page giving it a coarse, desperate complexion.

The nuances of difference between his writing and mine are subtle and under the eyes of a teacher who really couldn't care any less, they are negligible. But I notice the difference in our dots on i, the curve of the y, the h and the g.

My eyes linger on the sum and it takes me a couple of seconds and a facepalm to fully register the method. There are helpful arrows drawn in his working that link the question together and piece together the answer and it occurs to me that he didn't have to. The idea was simple but the method was elaborate and the careful numbering of steps helped me climb the treacherous ladder to the answer safely.

And I thought I'd never say this but: thank you, Iced Tea.

I chuckle under my breath and I am still giddy about how I am able to understand (something, for once) when I pull out my phone, scroll to his unsaved contact and send him a text.

It's only when the vibration jolts through my thigh I realize what I had done.

"Oh shit," I lurch forward and squint at the screen

You are the best.

The door jingles open and I hear the heavy footsteps of Mrs. Juana. I throw a careful sideways glance.

What do you want?

My fingers twitch immediately and with my eyes ahead,

The math sums. Thanks for correcting mine.

The phone vibrates.

Correcting them? You mean, redoing the whole thing again. From scratch.

I sigh and mumble under my breath about how being a decent human being sucks. I put the phone away and feeling good for the first time in my seat at math class since kindergarten, I begin to listen.

There are two unread messages fogging up my home screen when I take out the phone to text Nick about lunch. I scroll it up and Aiden's number that is still displayed as unknown appears emboldened.

Want help?

And following almost immediately was a rushed.

Consider it a token of gratitude

I lean back against the cubicle.

For what?

Not letting me die

Speaking of, what happened that night?

There was a pause. And the three blinking dots appear.

The mob shot me

I roll my eyes.

You are full of shit.

It took me a while to collect the senses of my whereabouts and to notice the increasing number of messages congesting my poor inbox from Nick.

Where r u. Im here

Did u ditch me?

R u dead?

No srsly, where r u?

Fk u, i don't need u

Pls come back.

Oh shit.

I shoot off a text to Aiden and a flood of relief gushes over me when I see his last text.

See you

I save his contact before I walk into the cafeteria.