What If I'm In Love (And What If You're Not)

Chapter 2

     I really, really hate math class.

     My teacher, Mr. Perron, is an actual demon. He gives us homework every single day, and it's never interesting. It's just questions from the textbook one day, and more questions from the textbook the next day. Completely and utterly boring.

     Which is why I haven't done even a page of homework since November. I do what I can in class, and don't do the rest. He never checks it, so I don't have to worry. Most other kids don't do it either, and I think Mr. Perron has given up on us. And on life, probably, because none of us have any respect for him as a teacher or as an individual.

     My desk, covered in sharpie doodles—the less vulgar ones drawn by me—is near the back, so I can easily go on my phone. I turn the brightness up so I can see the screen in the bright white fluorescent lights.

     Opening Instagram, I scroll past a few of the latest meme before finding a selfie of some kid I followed a couple weeks ago. It's a group selfie. Him, his name's Chris, Jameson, Freddo—that's not his name, nobody know his real name—and in the back, arm draped over Jameson's shoulder, is Erika.

     I tap on the photo and find that she's tagged in it; her account isn't private, either. Her profile picture is her with her eyes closed, lying in some green grass. I scroll down, looking at her posts. They're all selfies, most of them unfiltered.

     Her phone has a very good camera, evidently, because she looks stunning in all the photos. I feel butterflies in my stomach when I look at one of them for too long. It's like what my old best friend Madison used to say she got when she looked at the boys she liked in grade 6. I think, even though people say it happens when you like someone that way, it's actually just what happens if you see someone really good-looking.

     To be fair, I always thought it was an exaggerated thing. Even when I liked a boy I never felt the butterflies. Sometimes I said I did so people wouldn't accuse me of pretending to like the boys I said I did.

     I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Mr. Perron telling us an overdramatic story about how he heard there was a bobcat in his neighbourhood, making him worried to ride his bike to school every morning.

     I, and a lot of other kids here, take great pleasure in the thought of Mr. Perron getting eaten by a bobcat. Opening my drawing notebook, I sketch an abstract bobcat—because I have no clue how to draw one—eating a blob of blue and grey, meant to symbolize how absolutely depressing Mr. Perron is. In the background of the drawing, I doodle a bike on it's side. Just for detail.

     Before I even know it, I've put more detail into the drawing than I meant to. The bobcat even looks cat-ish.

     "Imani, can you tell me what 'x' is in this equation?" Mr. Perron asks from the front of the class. I stare wide-eyed at him for a few seconds before even looking at the board.

     "It's- It's, um, three- no, four. It's four. 'X' is four," I stutter, bracing myself for a good yelling session. He looks back at the question for a moment and does calculations in his head. I can practically see the gears turning, which I doodle on my paper.

     With a sigh he begrudgingly says, "you're right. Good job." And turns to write another question. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, I go back to my drawings. A few of these aren't good enough to be anything more than doodles, confined to my sketchbook forever.

     The bell rings before I even realize class is about to end and I slam my book shut, stacking it on top of the rest of my things and rushing out the door. Next is art, one of the few classes I have with Sage.