Companion

Chapter 8: Confusing Help

I don't know how long I stare at my Calculus homework. The confusing configurations of shapes, letters, and numbers all begin to blend together, and I can't figure out where even to start. For everyone else, this is an easy review week. But for me, this is the week where I try to cram in all of the math that I never actually learned.

You see, it never quite registered in my head the first day of school, but I'm in all of the classes that are meant for 17-year-olds. So I guess it's no wonder I'm so lost in all of my classes, with the exception of a very few. Teachers are beginning to give out review assignments from subjects I've never learned. So I've decided to fake my way through it as best as I can.

Which is not very well.

I sigh, get up from my desk, and climb down to my room. My duffle bag is sitting in the corner next to my dresser. I reach into a small side pocket and find a small plastic card. I head down the stairs to the living room where Edge is shadow-boxing. I open the front door.

"Where're you going?" Edge asks, stepping, spinning, and executing a perfect hook kick. He doesn't stop.

"Out," I say. I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything bad, but for some reason I feel as if I shouldn't be specific with him.

"Out," Edge says, jumping up and kicking the air in front of him, "where?" He brings his leg up in an arc, then straight down with a frightening amount of force. I sigh.

"Library." I wait for a second, but he doesn't say anything else. So I walk out the door and shut it behind me.

I shove my hands, still gripping the card, into my sweatshirt pocket as the brisk wind blows bit of hair across my face. I flip it out of the way.

I find my way to the library, passing apartment buildings, then dorms, into the center of the city. The streets are fairly empty. Only adults have cars, and they live further away. The younger kids are all contained within the grounds of their dorms, and the Companions are probably doing homework or practicing like Edge. I'm grateful for the extremely light foot traffic because I can hum random songs as I walk without judgement or embarrassment, quieting down as I start passing more and more people as I near City Central.

In the very middle of the huge square is a clock tower. Light gray cement with a black, shiny metal plate at the top with the numbers 5:27 projected in glowing green.

Most of the buildings look the same. Clean edges, smooth surfaces. City news scrolls across screens in windows. City Central is usually super busy on the weekends, but next to vacant on weekdays. Most of the buildings are built in the same style. This is why it's so easy to spot the library.

The white marble is now gray with age. A series of long, shallow steps lead up to ginormous, mahogany doors. The roof is domed, making it stand out from all of the other, boring buildings. To me, it's the most majestic building I've ever seen in my life. It puts even the boring Capitol building to shame.

Of course, the inside is equally as majestic as the outside, if not more, but, for once, I don't actually notice. I make my way to the far right wall of textbooks. Multiple copies of every single textbook from very single class from five-year-olds until 17 are all crammed onto the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

I walk to the portion of the shelves labeled 15. I take one copy of each book from bottom to top, in no particular order. English, History, Biology...I have to set the books down on the table behind me because I can't hold them all at once.

Of course, the Geometry and Advanced Algebra books are on the highest shelves. I make a mental note and move to the section labeled 16. And, yet again. The Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus books are too high. I look up at them and sigh. I stack books on top of each other to make a stool, step up on them, grasping the narrow, wooden ledge of the shelf. As I raise myself up onto my toes, the books begin to slip against each other and I gasp, grabbing onto the shelf for dear life, then try to reach above me for the book.