Blue // Daniel Seavey

Chapter 8

Tori

"Okay, let's start easy," I take a sip of my caramel iced coffee, "How do you find ten percent of a number?"

"Erm," he furrows his brows. "Divide by ten?"

"Good." I nod simply, flashing him a look of praise. "So then with that ten, how would I find thirty percent?"

"Multiply it by three," he confidently answers, before crossing his arms and leaning back onto the chair casually.

"Yeah," I smile, pointing at him with the tip of my straw after having had taken a sip. "See, you're not even that bad. You just need to believe that you can do it."

"Thanks," he chuckles gently, nonchalantly sending me a shrug of his shoulders. "But what I don't get is how you'd find percentages like forty-seven or something. Like, how would you do it mentally, without a calculator?"

"Okay, here goes." I grab my notebook and pen, ready to write as I go along. "Say we're trying to find 47 percent of 240..." I blabber on, stopping to glance at him every now and then to see if he's taking anything I'm saying in.

"So then the answer is just 112.8," I conclude, setting down my pen. Taking a breath, I look up to find Jonah's eyes wide, his mouth agape as he stares down at my notebook.

"Jonah?" I ask, my eyebrows in a crease but my mouth in an amused grin. In silence, he continues to stare down.

"Jonah?" I press, waving my hand in front of his face as I attempt to receive a sign of movement. "Did you even get any of that?"

Slowly, he looks up, his eyes quickly darting between my face and the work on the table, until his mouth grows into a smile. "What. The. Actual. Hell. Did. You. Just. Do."

"Why?" I question with a tilted head, laughing lightly. "Do you not understand?"

"No!" he laughs. "I have no fucking idea what you just did. How the hell does that kind of information stay in your head?"

"Jonah," I smile, "You should've learnt this stuff like... years ago. Where the heck have you been?"

"I've been dumb since I was born, Tori. I barely know what five squared is, never mind knowing that forty-seven freakin' percent of two hundred and forty is 121.8"

"It was 112.8," I say, trying my best to suppress laughter.

"See!" His mouth cracks into an even larger smile. "I can't even remember the answer you told me twenty seconds ago!"

"It's fine, Jonah," I giggle, "Don't worry about it. We've got loads of time to learn this stuff," I shrug, "We'll take baby steps."

"Yeah, thanks, Tori," he smiles.

"Okay. Now please tell me you know your times tables up to twelve."

He raises a brow, bites his lip, leans back again and folds his arms.

Alright, I think I get the message.

"Up to ten?" I ask.

His eyebrow rises higher.

"Eight?"

Still no proper response.

"Oh my gosh, Jonah. You don't know any of them, do you?" I have to try and stifle my laughter again.

He shakes his head, his lips curled up into a small smile.

"Oh my, oh my. This is gonna be a lot harder than I originally thought," I say teasingly.