Emerson Castell loves facts.
Enjoying the how and why of everything, she never fails to let her obsession seep into every aspect of her life, including her relationships - or lack thereof.
Leo Caruso is no stranger to a busy social life, but after...
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"Great," I muttered under my breath, running my hands over my face. I had drifted into the world of my thoughts during this calculus test, and I now realized I still had ten more problems to complete. The teacher, Mr. Abrams, had a straight line for a smile and an eager hand on his stopwatch. An actual stopwatch; as if this was gym class and not a math test.
Even my teachers in New York weren't that weird.
"Eight more minutes," he grumbled, while walking down the aisles and peering at every student's paper. He stopped behind my desk, and I could feel him breathing on my shoulder. He bent his head forward and his eyes scanned my test for a full minute—longer than he had for any other student. Eventually, I shifted in my seat out of discomfort.
"Is that really necessary," I asked after another minute of him hovering over me like a UFO. At first, he didn't seem to register my biting tone, still behind me. Seconds later, he had walked in front of my desk, judging me with his beady brown eyes.
"What did you say?" he snapped, tilting his head downwards to somehow see me better.
"I just meant was it necessary to hover over my paper for two minutes," I answered, a white-knuckled grip on my pencil. At this point, a few people had averted their attention from their calculators to me. "I can't focus."
"Do you think I care to hear what you meant?" he scoffed. He was looking at me as if I had committed a crime. "I'm not here teaching this class for you to question my motives."
"I wasn't—" I began, but he was having none of it. Santiago turned to me with a sympathetic look reading, "What the hell?"
"You will be speaking with me after class," he finished curtly, before walking back to the front of the room. "To the rest of you, three more minutes."
I tried to ignore him the rest of the test, focusing on finishing the last of the problems instead. A satisfied smile met my face upon realizing I wasn't going to get a bad grade after all. Calculus can suck my ass. I put my pencil and calculator back in my bag and stood up, walking down the aisle of desks. People were already beginning to place their tests on the teacher's desk and rush out into the hallways to their freedom. I dropped mine on the top of the growing pile and walked to the door.
"Excuse me, where do you think you're going, Leonardo?" Mr. Abrams asked, his cheeks sucked in as if he had just eaten a bad lemon. I turned my head around once I reached the door.
"I don't like having my motives questioned," I answered and walked down the hallway, as far away from his class as I could get.
Standing near my locker, with an amused expression on her face and a stack of textbooks effortlessly in her hands, was Emerson Castell.
"Have fun in detention," she told me with a barely detectable wink before disappearing to her next class.
