How About No

Chapter 2: Your Turn

Cassandra^^

Just when Carolyn thought her day couldn't get any worse, she was late to Calculus. When she slipped in and tried to go unnoticed, the professor called out to her.

"Just get here when you can," he said strictly, "Name?"

All eyes were on Carolyn as she hung her head, "I'm sorry, sir, Amalie Peters, sir."

Carolyn slid into the chair closest to the door, but Professor Jin had other ideas.

"Come to the front, please, Amalie Peters," he barked an order at her.

With a shaking hand and wobbly feet, Carolyn made her way to the front row, where there was only one seat left. Almost as if to mock her, the seat was right in the center of the front row and right beside the red-head that had been so rude to her in her last class. What was her name again? Caroline? Casey? Cory? She remembered that it started with a C.

The girl smirked at Carolyn and scooted her books as close to the empty seat as possible, in order to give Carolyn the smallest amount of personal space possible. Glancing at the girl's books with fire in her eyes, Carolyn slid into the chair. By this time, the professor had already started teaching. As Professor Jin wrote foreign symbols on the board, Carolyn's focus began to shift. She found herself watching the red head's paper. On the top right-hand corner of her notes, written neatly in pen, it read "Cassandra Deke."

So the red head's name was Cassandra. That made sense to Carolyn, since if you take off "Cas," it spells "Sandra," and Carolyn had always thought that Sandra was a name only fit for a horrid person. As Carolyn was day dreaming, Professor Jin thought it would be extremely funny to call her up to the front to explain to the class what they were talking about.

"Amalie Peters," the strict professor began, "I would like for you to come solve this equation please."

A brand-new, unsolved, equation flickered onto the board as Carolyn staggered to the front of the classroom, eyes bulging at the seemingly impossible equation.

Marker in hand, she raised her arm up to began writing.

"Wait, just a moment, dear," for a brief moment, Professor Jin seemed to be slightly less strict, but it quickly came back when he said, "I want you to explain what you're doing as you write it."

A quick nod from Carolyn told the professor that she understood what he expected of her.

For several moments, Carolyn stood at the board, marker poised, ready to write. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out how to solve the equation, but she was absolutely perplexed with it. Slowly, she dropped her arm.

"I-I'm sorry, Professor Jin," she stuttered quietly, a tear forming in her eye, "I-I am afraid I d-don't know how to s-solve this problem."

Professor Jin gave her a smug smile before calling out another name. As soon as the "C" formed in his mouth, Carolyn knew he was going to call up Cassandra.

"Cassandra Deke," the professor called out, "I would like for you to come and solve this equation, please, dear."

Cassandra's long legs carried her to the front of the room effortlessly. Without Cassandra beside her, Carolyn felt as if she had plenty of space. She hardly even realized that there was another person beside her. Cassandra raised her arm and pushed the marker against the board. It only took a couple minutes for her to have numbers written all over the board. Carolyn was grateful that she didn't have to write that many letters, especially since her dyslexia would make her very slow at writing the complex letters and numbers. By the time she was done, the professor had a very thoughtful look on his face.

Cassandra drew a dark circle around her answer and Professor Jin beamed at her. She stepped away from the board and, true to her name, a smug smile fell upon her face.

"Very impressive, Miss Deke," Professor Jin said to her.

"Thank you very much, sir," Cassandra smiled, returning to her seat beside Carolyn.

Carolyn's eyes followed Cassandra right to the moment she sat down.

"Miss Peters," Carolyn's attention snapped back to Professor Jin, "Do you understand now?"

Carolyn thought for a minute before speaking, "Almost, sir, there was just one thing I had a question on."

"Well?" all eyes in the classroom fell on Carolyn, including the professor's.

"Oh, urm... the third step... how did she get that?" Carolyn questioned.

The professor glanced back at Cassandra's work and a frown formed on his face.

"There is a mistake here," he said curiously, "Miss Deke, would you like to come back up to the board to fix this?"

Her face red with embarrassment, Cassandra slunk back up to the board. She raised the marker to the board and, once again, wrote several numbers and corrections. Smugly, Carolyn sat in her chair twirling a blonde hair around her finger. She ripped a piece of paper out of her notebook and wrote a little note on it. It read:

"C:

Your turn.

-A"

When Cassandra finally sat back down, she opened the note and read it carefully. She flipped it over twice to see if she could figure out who it was from. Almost as if it was a sudden realization, she glanced at Carolyn, smirking. Professor Jin dismissed class and Carolyn shot a small grin at Cassandra before gathering her books and walking out. Maybe Calculus wouldn't be so bad after all.

EEEK! Some tension between C&C! Who is your favorite character so far? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!

-Em