The Fighter

Chapter 13: His Secret

"Five minutes, that's all I need."

Sitting in math class, Dylan's words played through my head. Five minutes is all he needs for what? To make me fall for him again? What could he possibly have to tell me?

I glanced over at the empty seat to my right. The year was not going as planned at all. Laura was only in one other class with me from the stupid schedule change and now I was left alone in my strange math class.

"Someone tell me how to differentiate between the law of sines and law of cosines." My math teacher offered. At that extremely silent moment I really could have used some crickets to lighten the mood; my breathing scared me it was so quiet. I mean it was the second day, he was lucky we even remembered how to count.

He began looking around before he tapped on my desk. "Why don't you give the class a difference?"

God, think, think, think. "The co." I blurted and the whole class erupted with laughter. "I mean, CO-sine and sine... you know." I literally couldn't have dug myself a grave any better than that one.

I glanced up at my teacher, who had the most stern expression I'd ever seen, I felt like he'd turn me to stone. But as with my life, the unthinkable happened and he bursted with laughter himself, like a hyena. It was so awkward. "In all my years I've never heard that response before."

I just slapped a hand to my forehead. I could see the nicknames formulating in the other kid's minds. "Cophie, Coco, Sophico." PLEASE not Sophico.

"You all have to learn to raise your hands without worrying about if you're right or wrong." My teacher said as he wrote down the laws on the chalkboard. "It's the second day of school, I didn't expect you all to know much about the topic, I wanted to see confidence and creativity."

I slid down into my seat and I was getting that cold but sweaty feeling all over my body. I started scribbling all over my notebook, my face burning so much I was forced to bite my lip to make sure it wasn't disintegrating.

"The law of-" Mr. Timothy was interrupted by a sudden entrance into the classroom.

I was too busy drowning in embarrassment to care about who walked into the room, so I didn't look up.

"Yes?"

"There was an open spot, so the counselor programmed me into this class."

"Take a syllabus from my desk and have a seat." Mr. Timothy offered, before continuing the lesson.

My eyes widened and before I could even formulate a thought, the "stranger" plopped down in the only empty seat in the classroom, the one next to me. "Uh, hey can I borrow a pencil?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I mean why would you bring something to write with, it's only a school." I muttered, before my gaze locked with his.

Xavier raised his eyebrows which brought out his deep green eyes even more than they already were shining and I think my nose crinkled. "So... you don't have a pencil?" He asked, a huge grin appearing on his face.

"What the heck are you doing here?" I whispered, keeping an eye out for Mr. Timothy who was immersed in writing on the board.

"Learning." He bantered before crossing his arms pompously.

"Yes, we are all trying to learn here, thank you Mr. Mason." Mr. Timothy warned, his reddening face and harsh features painting a vexed expression.

Hah.

As Mr. Timothy demonstrated the fundamentals of pre-calculus, I started to wonder how I was going to pay attention in math if Xavier was going to sit next to me all year. I liked him and everything but it's not like he still wasn't annoying.