The next day, Louisa came into calculus class late. This wasn’t unusual, seeing as how she was late at least two days out of five. No, the shocking part was that she came in wearing a lip ring.

“So, I’m going to spend this day enjoying the little time I have left before I’m disowned from the family,” Louisa said as she swung her combat boots around her seat to face us both.

My eyebrows flew up in surprise, but Amelia’s reaction was the best. She dropped her pencil to the ground and practically choked on the granola bar she was sneakily eating, so that her whole face went purple.

I thumped her on the back.

“Wha—what—what is that?” Amelia managed to choke out at last.

“What does it look like?”

“Wow,” was all I could say.

Louisa fingered the ring and grinned at us proudly. “Yeah, I know. It was kind of an impulse buy.”

“And your parents let you do this?” I said in shock. Louisa’s dad was more prude than most Victorian-era women. He had once flipped out on his daughter for wearing a V-neck to school. “How are you still alive?”

Louisa gave us a mysterious little grin. “My parents don’t know about it yet. I just got this done.”

“You skipped part of class to get your lip pierced?” Amelia demanded like she thought Louisa might have gone mad. “Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s senior year, Amelia. Live it up a little.”

“Poking holes into my skin is considered ‘living it up’?”

Louisa rolled her eyes. “Geez, calm down. Who are you, my mother?”

The two of them went on like that for a while. This was the interesting thing about Louisa and Amelia: they could be best friends and worst enemies all at once. If that made any sense. If someone made them room together, one of them would probably be dead within the week.

Anyway, as Amelia pulled up her phone and explained to Louisa the dangers of piercing skin, I worked through the calculus set while Mr. Betts came around inspecting our progress. This was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until a glance out of the corner of my eye showed me a pair of scruffy black Nike sneakers.

I looked up from my worksheet to find Alexander Lin peering over my shoulder.

“Geez!” I turned around immediately and tried to ignore how fast my heart was pounding. I must’ve been really shocked by his sudden appearance. “Can I help you, Alexander?” I said tightly. I hoped he didn’t think we were supposed to be friends now just because we were volunteering together.

“Actually, yes.”

While I waited for him to go on, Alexander just sort of stood there and smiled at me. It seemed like he hadn’t noticed that he was causing quite a commotion among the girls (all five of them) in our class.

“Okay…” I said, feeling my skin tingle uncomfortably at the idea of being watched. “Can you…elaborate on that?”

“No, I think I’m fine, thanks.” Without asking for my permission, he grabbed my worksheet off the desk and examined it. There was a moment of awkward silence while his brows furrowed and he hummed slightly.

I tried to ignore the fact that Louisa and Amelia had stopped their arguing to stare at Alexander with knowing looks on their faces.

Let me tell you, I knew exactly what those two were thinking. And I didn’t like it one bit.

“Ahh. I see how that works now,” Alexander said after too long, nodding at the paper in his hands.

“Excuse me?”

He just smiled again and said, “Thanks.”

“Uh…you’re welcome?”

Alexander set down my worksheet and made his way back to his group on the other end of the room.

Immediately, both Louisa and Amelia squealed and leaned in excitedly, their homework completely forgotten.

“Why was Alexander here?”

“So much for hating him, Nancy!”

“Are you two friends now?”

“Are you two dating?!”

I held up my hands. “Stop, stop, stop. We’re not dating. We’re not even friends. And I definitely don’t know why he came over here to get help from me.”

“Yeah, because it’s not like you’re the best student in this class or anything,” Louisa said sarcastically.

“I’m not. That would be Alexander.”

“Second best, then,” Amelia said. She and Louisa shared a knowing look.

Louisa smiled. “So when’s the wedding?”

I ignored that, and everything else those two said about Alexander’s “geeky hotness” for the rest of the hour. Although you’d never see the cheerleaders giggling over him, Alexander Lin was considered a catch by almost all the girls in the geeky crowd.

And I understood it. I really did. He was smart and easy on the eyes. That was good enough to satisfy just about every nerdy girl out there.

But not this one, unfortunately.

I just didn’t get why everyone was shocked to know that I didn’t like him even one bit. Especially considering I knew for a fact that Alexander didn’t like me. He’d probably been scanning my answers to laugh with his friends about how underachieving I was compared to him.

Anyway, my day didn't improve much. During English, we were given the whole time to split into groups and brainstorm out ideas for our presentation on love and relationships.

Before I could get away from them, Margaret Liu and Patty Buchanan—the two girls I liked the least out of my group of friends—flocked to me like a couple of flies to a piece of dead meat.

“So let me get this straight,” Margaret Liu said to me while she completely misinterpreted the ‘go away’ looks I was giving her. She chewed on the tip of her pen cap and threw Patty a strange look. “You can’t come to Myrtle Beach because you’ve got to work on this presentation?”

Patty let out a loud sigh. “Yeah. My parents seriously suck.”

“I’ll say. Now we’re down to four kids going on the trip. So much for the weekend of our lives.” Margaret leaned in closer to our clustered desks, and I caught a whiff of that Eu De Way Too Strong that was coming off of her in waves. “You know Christina Li just broke up with Daniel, too?”

“No way,” Patty gasped. “That’s so rough. And they’re both still going?”

“Well, the deal is too good to pass up. Wouldn’t you go anyway if you could get a suite for thirty bucks a night?”

“I so would. If my parents didn’t suck so much.”

This led the two of them to go off on another rant about how ridiculously strict Patty’s parents were. I plugged some headphones in my ear and played some classical music, which usually helped me focus.

Unfortunately, Patty and Margaret were so loud that even Beethoven’s fifth couldn’t drown them out.

“Can you two please be a little quieter?” I said as nicely as possible.

They looked at me scandalously, like I’d just yelled the words at them. Thankfully, Mrs. Reed was coming by to inspect our progress, so the two of them seemed to decide it would be better to just shut up and at least pretend to be working.

Not even a full minute later, Margaret tapped her pencil against the desk and looked at me. Just looked. It made me feel like the dormouse on the Nature Channel just before an eagle pounced on it.

“So, Nancy. What’s your English presentation about?”

This girl just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I sighed and resigned myself to the conversation. “The mathematics of love,” I said.

Patty gaped at me for a moment, and then shared a look with her best friend. “Your English presentation…is about math?” she said in disbelief.

“Not just any math. The mathematics of love,” I corrected.

Patty again shared a quick look with Margaret, one that was so quick I could barely even see it, much less interpret it. Those two were so inseparable that they had their own body language that the rest of us would never understand. They were so inseparable that they practically shared one mind.

Considering they were also some of the biggest gossips among the Asian/geek crowd, I was not exactly lining up to be their third wheel in this class.

Unfortunately, knowing absolutely nobody else in English class hadn’t really given me any other options.

“You would do something related to math, Nancy,” Patty sighed. “Why am I not even surprised?”

“I like math,” I said defensively. “Plus, this idea was very last minute. So sue me.”

“Okay, but analyzing the mathematics of love? What, are you going to figure out some kind of formula for love or something?” Margaret asked in disbelief.

“Not sure yet.” I shrugged. “But if I do end up developing a formula for love, how hard can it be?”

There was a short silence that followed, save for the background noises of kids getting started with the English presentations.

“Nancy,” Patty finally sighed, giving my arm a gentle but condescending pat, “even math can’t explain love. Everyone knows that.”

“There’s got to be some concept behind it,” I argued.

Margaret and Patty gave each other looks that clearly told me they thought I was years behind them in maturity.

“There are quite a few more things you missed in our middle school Sex Ed talks, I think,” Patty said condescendingly.

“She probably missed that day on purpose,” Margaret giggled.

“It must have been the one day Nancy ever missed any school.”

“Will everyone please stop talking about me like I’m not sitting right here?” I sighed.

Margaret and Patty both gave me catty little smiles, but thankfully turned their conversation to Christina and Daniel’s break-up for the rest of the hour.

I was left to work on my own. Which was just fine by me. 

*****

That evening, I sat down to do some hard-core studying for the Junior Mathematics Tournament. It was only three days away, and between school and volunteering and drafting my college application essays, I’d had almost no time to study for it at all. This mean I had a ridiculous amount of material to get through in a very short amount of time.

It was times like these that I broke out the coffee maker and lived on caffeine.

I sat down with a fresh pot of coffee and got to work. I must’ve worked for about four hours straight before I finally took a break for dinner, and then it was back to work yet again.

Since the house was empty, it was much easier to focus than usual. Mom and Dad had gone over to some adults-only gathering with their Chinese friends. They’d left Liang Liang at a neighbor’s house to give me some peace of mind.

Kevin had gone out job hunting again, which my parents were having him do pretty much every evening now. To no avail, I might add.

Anyway, about halfway through my review of slant asymptotes, I heard a ping! come from my computer screen. It was a message notification on Facebook, but that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that it was from Alexander Lin.

Alexander: Hey, been studying for the JMT?

I must have stared at my screen for a solid five minutes while my mind wrestled with itself. On the one hand, I was tempted to just ignore him and see what would happen. On the other hand, I thought he’d just keep bothering me if I didn’t respond now.

On my third hand (a hallucination generated by my over-consumption of caffeine, probably), I was wondering when on Earth I’d even friend-requested Alexander Lin on Facebook in the first place. Or had it been the other way around?

In the end, I thought long and hard about what I was going to say. I had only one chance to respond the right way. After all, I had to make sure it had just the right amount of non-interest.

Nancy: Yep.

The reply was almost instantaneous.

Alexander: Great. Do you understand the section on polar graphing? I don’t get it at all.

Nancy: We learned it in class a week ago…

Alexander: Oh. Maybe I was absent or something. Anyway, can you help? I don’t get number seventy-eight on the review sheet they gave us.

My eyebrows flew up. Let me tell you, Alexander Lin was never absent. Alexander Lin had never been stuck on any math problem.

This whole situation screamed suspicion at me.

Nancy: You’re not pulling my leg, are you?

Alexander: No…why would you think that? I really don’t get it.

Nancy: Because you’re the smartest kid in our grade, Mr. Class President. In case you haven’t noticed.

Alexander’s next reply took longer than all his others, like he was thinking hard about what to say next.

Alexander: Are you STILL mad about the class president thing?

Nancy: No…

Alexander: You’re clearly still mad.

Nancy: I said I’m not already!

Alexander: If you’re really that upset, I can just give the class president position to you.

It took me a moment to fully comprehend the meaning of his words. Then, in a rush of emotion, my fingers flew across the keyboard.

Nancy: What? Are you serious?

Alexander: Well, why not? I’m sure everyone would be fine with it. And I didn’t REALLY want to be president, anyway. It doesn’t mean a thing to me.

Nancy: Thanks, but forget it.  I don’t want your leftovers.

There was another pause in his response.

Alexander: Geez, are you always this nice to people who offer to do you favors?

Nancy: Are you always this pacifying to everyone by offering these ‘favors’?

Alexander: I don’t understand you. I don’t understand this conversation.

Nancy: Well, that makes two of us.

Alexander: Look, I’m sorry about whatever I did to piss you off, okay? I just want some help on math. How am I supposed to do number seventy-three?

Nancy: …I thought you said you needed help on seventy-eight.

There was another long pause while I stared at my screen, waiting to see what kind of response the boy genius would give now. Not even Alexander could worm his way out of this one.

Alexander: Both. I meant I need help on both.

Yeah, nice try.

Nancy: Good night, Alexander.

I logged off and tried to re-focus on my notes, but it was no use. Alexander’s offer had made me mad. Madder than what was even reasonable, probably.

I just couldn’t believe that he’d offered the position so easily to me and even admitted he hadn’t wanted it in the first place.

Why run, then? Better yet: why run and then beat the candidates who actually wanted to be class president?

Probably just to make me mad.

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself staring at the wall and envisioning ways to get rid of Alexander Lin without getting caught. I’d come up with a pretty hefty list. It probably would have gotten even longer and gorier before something crashed downstairs.

I shot out of my chair immediately. My first thought was that it was burglars. Actually, my first thought was that it was the Boogey-man, but I’d rather not talk about that.

I tried to recall what Dad had said about dealing with burglars: “Run at them and give them a good spin-kick to the face!”

Unfortunately, it had been years since I’d taken martial arts, and I’d never even done one spin-kick to the face.

I crawled over toward the staircase, leaning my head out just far enough that I could see what was going on down there. My heart was pounding out of my chest.

It turned out I didn’t have to wait for long. A head emerged into my line of vision—Kevin’s!

I breathed a great sigh of relief and was about to call him out for nearly giving me a heart attack, when a second head emerged. This one was familiar as well.

“So when exactly are you planning to tell your family about this?” Vanessa hissed at Kevin. “This whole sneaking around thing isn’t exactly convenient for me.”

Between them, it appeared they were carrying a very large object. I squinted and realized it was a guitar.

“Uh…never,” Kevin said.

“You’re kidding me. They’ll have to find out at some point.”

“Not necessarily,” Kevin shot back. “Not if we’re stealthy enough.”

“You and stealthy don’t even belong in the same sentence, Kevin.”

“You and stealthy aren’t exactly best mates, either.” My brother reached behind him to unlock the front door. He scanned all around the room, no doubt to make sure I wasn’t around to see him. Oh, the irony.

“Now be quiet. I don’t need my kid sister waking up and…”

Figuring I’d had enough of all this secrecy from my brother, I cleared my throat and stepped down the stairs. Both Kevin and Vanessa nearly dropped the guitar in shock.

“Nancy!” Kevin choked, his eyes bugging out of his head.

I stared from one guilt-stricken face to the other and let myself smile.

“Well,” I said after that uncomfortable silence had dragged on long enough. “Sorry to interrupt, but do you two burglars want to tell me what’s going on before I call the cops?”

*****

A/N - Man, a lot happened this chapter! In chapter 6, we will finally start to get some answers. Also, if you're rooting for Alexander and Nancy, you may be rooting for a while before anything happens. Just a heads up. They're not exactly bright when it comes to this kind of thing...

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