Hiya Readers
Ho boy! Now things are getting serious.
xoxo Dana
Chapter Five
For the first time, Zane is waiting at the library when I arrive. He’s been notoriously late for every previous session, but today, he’s already hunched over his textbook.
I take my regular seat across from him and examine the area before unpacking. The surrounding tables are all full, even though it’s dinnertime. Inside my bag, I nudge a sketchbook aside and pull out my calculus book, notebook, and folder of tests and quizzes.
Zane plugs along with his current problem until he at last finds his solution and circles it. He looks up and smiles. “Hey. How was your weekend?”
“Fine, thanks.” I stretch over the table to peek at his work. “Doing the study worksheet?”
He checks the time on his phone. “Actually, I could use a break.”
“A break?”
“I’ve been here for over an hour. My last final finished around 3:30.”
For a moment, I can’t decide whether to be surprised he’s dedicated that much time to studying for the Calc final or because it’s taken him nearly an hour and a half to finish the suggested practice problems. “Well, I don’t need a break. Let me look over your work.”
He pushes the papers toward me and heads for the stairs.
Everything appears to be in order. I circle a few problems for him to look over and redo, but the majority of the work is accurate, though definitely less organized than my own.
Zane returns with an energy drink from the vending machines in the basement and leans his chair back on two legs while he waits. “What did you do this weekend?”
“I told you before.” My eyes flit across the page. “I was busy.”
“Right, you had plans.” He pauses. “You were studying, though, right?”
I stop in the middle of circling a problem. The ink pools on the paper. “None of your business.”
“Of course.” He takes a drink, and I continue.
The quiet of the library is only interrupted by the soft roll of my pen as it moves across the page, circling every misstep.
“Why don’t you want to tell me?” He leans forward. His chair bangs against the hardwood floor as it lands.
A few heads turn our way, but they quickly return to their studies. Zane doesn’t notice the disturbance.
“Do you have a secret boyfriend or a secret identity? Are you a bank robber? A vigilante?”
At last, I turn to him with narrow eyes. “You know how completely ridiculous you sound, right?”
He shrugs.
“This is work. That means I have no obligation to tell you about my personal life or spend any time with you outside of this library. I don’t have to have a secret identity or a secret boyfriend or a secret anything in order for me to tell you no.”
He studies me. “So you’re not seeing anyone then?”
I raise my voice as I speak. “Are you deaf?”
But he smiles. That’s all the answer he needs.
I turn back to the offending worksheet. There’s one problem left, but I don’t want to look it over. I circle it like the others and shove the paper under his nose. “Rework these please. That has to be enough of a break for you.”
His smile widens as he accepts the paper and begins to look over the problems.
“Did you bring all your notes and tests to go over?”
“Yeah, of course.” He nods toward his textbook and a barely used notebook. I’ve certainly never seen him with it. It’s wide-ruled.
I grab the books and scoff as I thumb through the pages. “I don’t know how we haven’t gone over this, but you’d probably do a lot better in class if you took notes—real notes.”
He doesn’t look up. “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”
I move on. “When you’re done, we need to go over each chapter. We covered eight this semester, so I figure fifteen to thirty minutes each. We want to be as in-depth as possible. For your sake.”
Despite the jibe, Zane glances up with a smile.
I return to the table of contents in my textbook. “Let me know when you’re ready to start. We’ll begin with functions and limits before making our way to integration.”
“I’m mostly done.” He’s already worked through most of the problems I circled. “I’m having trouble figuring out what’s wrong with this last one.”
I quirk my mouth to the side. “It’s fine. Let’s get to work with functions.” I flip a couple pages to the introduction of the chapter and go over the definition of a mathematical function.
“I’m getting hungry,” Zane announces as we flip through the chapter. “Can we eat something while we do this?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He taps the table with his index finger. “Come on, you’ve got to be hungry too. I’ll pay.”
I shake my head and turn the page to look at limits. “That’s definitely not a good idea. Let’s work.”
“Fine.”
But I can hear his stomach grumble.
By the time we arrive at the Eyrie, I already regret my decision.
Zane leads the way inside the campus restaurant and heads for the register, but I push past him to buy a drink and find a table. I lay my bag on the chair beside me and unpack before prying open my bottle of water. Hopefully Jimmy isn’t on the clock—or worse, Xander. But there’s no sign of either around the restaurant.
Zane joins me with a receipt and a soda and takes out his materials.
“Alright, we’ve gone over functions, limits, and derivatives. We need to focus on integrals now. We’re not even halfway through the semester’s work; we’re a little behind.”
He brushes my words aside. “Relax. Can’t we talk while we wait for my food?”
I clasp my fingers together atop the table. “We need to focus. This final determines half our grade.”
Zane leans forward and smiles. “Where are you from?”
“A boring town in the middle of the Bible Belt. We need to talk about indefinite integrals.”
He ignores me. “I was born out in California, L.A. area. I lived there with my mom for about fifteen years before moving to upstate New York with my dad.”
I pause. “Your parents are divorced?”
He nods. “It wasn’t a big deal. It was mutual, and I was so little it didn’t affect me much.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Yours are divorced too, right? Or separated?”
“Yeah.”
One of the student workers in the kitchen rings the bell and calls out a number, and Zane hops up to grab his sandwich.
When he returns, I dive right in. “What’s an indefinite integral?”
“Isn’t it the anti-derivative or something like that?” He picks up his sandwich and takes a bite. “You stayed with your mom?”
I heave a sigh. “Yes, it is a differentiable function whose derivative is equal to the original function, which is why we have to solve for it using an operation that is the opposite of differentiation.”
He takes another couple bites of his sandwich.
“Right. I’m just saying you staying with your mom would explain all the weirdness with your dad last week. Why are you majoring in Math?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Am I not good at it?”
He sips his soda. “You’ve definitely improved my work.”
“Then let’s keep improving it.” I turn back to the book. “Let’s start with a simple problem, okay?”
“I mean,” he continues as if I didn’t say anything, one hand cupped around his drink, “you seem kinda upset with him, so why’re you studying math?”
I grind my teeth and glare at the paper. “Zane, you need to focus. I don’t imagine you want to fail your final, and I definitely don’t.”
We sit in an awkward silence. I pull out our last chapter test and look over the two answers I got wrong while waiting for him to get his head in the game.
“Look,” he says finally, but I refuse. “I was a little insensitive at the library. I want to apologize.”
I stop in the middle of taking a drink.
“You’ve been a big help, Wilhelmina, and we’re spending a lot of time together. I’d like to know you better. That’s why I was asking you all those questions. I’d like for us to be friends.”
The paper in front of me is white, crisp, clean. Even my own notes on the page are precise and organized—exactly how I want my life. I glance over at Zane’s test, sticking out from under his food basket. His work is anything but organized. Honestly, I don’t know how the professor follows it.
“I accept your apology, Zane, but this is a business relationship, and that’s how it should stay.”
“Come on.” He places his hand over mine. “You have to be more underneath that cold exterior. Give me a chance.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I’m not a hard shell with a soft gooey center. I’m just me.”
“Then show me.”
I pull away. “I want to be at my best for the test tomorrow, and I’m sure you do too. We can discuss this later.”
By the time Zane and I finish at the Eyrie, it’s late, and with the final at eight, I want nothing more than to collapse on my bed and fall asleep. Holding a conversation with Zane is exhausting—both from the number of hours we’ve spent studying and from his unwavering attempts to hijack the conversation.
I kick off my shoes and drop my backpack at the foot of my bed before slipping into pajamas.
Thankfully, Val is elsewhere.
I lay my glasses on my desk and curl up under the covers.
Someone shoves a key in the door lock.
With a groan, I turn toward the wall and bury my head under the blanket, preparing for the bright fluorescent light that’s sure to follow.
“Hush,” Val says as the door creaks open, “I think she’s sleeping. That’s a first.” She shuffles inside the room, trying to avoid making noise, and opens her closet. “I’m going to grab a new shirt. This one has deodorant on it. Am I spending the night in your room or not?”
Her companion snorts, probably at her concern over deodorant. Xander—not that I’m surprised. “Who’re you trying to impress? We’re literally going across the hallway to have sex.”
She rifles through her closet, metal scraping against metal as she pushes hangers aside. “Should I wear this one? Or this one?”
There’s no sound for a moment.
“Well, your tits look great in the lacy one.”
“Xander! If I stay the night in your room, I might not have the time to come back for my stuff in the morning. I need to dress normally.”
“Right,” he says, sarcasm eating away at his voice, “we wouldn’t want you to do the two-doors-away walk of shame.”
Val huffs. “Which shirt?”
The mattress squeaks as he sits on her bed. “How the hell am I supposed to know? If you want a girl’s opinion, ask a fucking girl. Wake up Dixon and ask her.”
Dear God, no.
Val releases a low growl and returns to flipping through her closet. “Billie? Please! That bitch wouldn’t know fashion if it walked up to her naked and bit her on the ass.”
My grip tightens on the sheets, and for a while, the only sound is the scraping of hangers against the metal rod as she continues her quest for the perfect outfit, no longer concerned about the noise she’s making.
The bed squeaks again.
“Don’t call her that.” Xander’s words are so quiet I strain to hear them.
I frown.
Val pauses, then resumes rifling through her clothes. “She’s such a snob—and what the hell does she have to feel superior about? Doesn’t she know everyone hates her?”
“That’s not true.”
She releases a mirthless laugh. “Fine, she has one friend—and she’s as much of a bitch to him as she is to everyone else.” She pulls out another hanger. “I’m wearing this one.”
“Then you don’t get their friendship. You don’t get her.”
“Are you seriously defending her right now? You have to deal with her bullshit more than anyone else because your roommate is the only one who can stand her. All she does is play on her laptop and draw in that stupid sketchbook anyway. She’s not so special.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Seen what? The sketchbook?” The empty hanger clatters to the hard floor. “Like she’d show me what’s inside.” Val’s voice is muffled. “It’s probably a bunch of stick figures, and she won’t show anyone because she wants people to think she’s amazing.”
“You never know,” Xander says noncommittally, “maybe she is amazing. I bet she’s too nervous to show anyone. She’s probably really good.”
“I highly doubt that. Now, how do I look?”
He groans. “Why does it matter if we’re just going to bed? Can we go now? Jimmy’s studying till they close the library. I told him to make himself scarce for a while.”
“Fine, let’s go.”
Their footsteps lead to the door, but they stop as Val fumbles in her purse.
“Oh, come on, I just had them.” She laughs triumphantly as she yanks her jingling keys free, and the door opens.
“Seriously, can we go already?”
Val scoffs, and her keys jingle again.
The door shuts behind them, and Val locks the deadbolt from outside.
I push the covers away to breathe and stretch across the mattress. Above me, the dark ceiling plays back the discussion. I can picture it all in my head down to the irritated crinkle between Xander’s eyebrows at her high-maintenance apparel needs. He’s sent me that same look often. But the way his voice sounded when he spoke about me: soft, pensive, kind—that’s new.
