I just stared at her, unsure how to respond. “Thanks, Mrs. Hawthorne. You rock.”

She smiled at me, and I was sure there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. As if she suspected. But it wasn’t like she could do anything, even if she did know, even if I did tell her what happened in the Dorsey living room.

I knew Becca lived in one of the newer subdivisions a few miles away, so I headed in that direction after leaving Nell’s house. I stopped near the entrance to the subdivision and dialed the number that Nell had given me.

TWO: Second Choice; a First Date

Becca de Rosa

September, sophomore year of high school

I swore under my breath as I tried to hurry through the last ten questions of my calculus homework. I hated calculus. It was tedious and difficult, but I had to be in all advanced classes to please Father. Or, rather, to maintain his approval, since pleasing him was all but impossible. The loud bass thumping of my brother Ben’s stupid rap music made it even more difficult to concentrate, especially since he’d turned it up louder after I’d asked him to turn it down. I loved my brother, but he was so very difficult, especially when he was in one of these moods, the depressed, angry times.

I had to finish this calculus, because if I didn’t, I knew I would never do it, and that meant I couldn’t leave the house. My parents were hideously exacting when it came to my academics. They demanded a weekly progress report, including all upcoming tests and exams, completed homework assignments and those due, and any possible extra credit. I was allowed three hours of personal “free” time every day, but only after all homework was completed. Which, seeing as I was in all AP courses, meant that I often did not get even as much as a single hour to myself. I usually labored over homework until nine or ten every night, and after ten I was not allowed to leave the house. I spent much of my time in my room, away from my constantly bickering parents. When I was not doing homework, I would write, read, or watch a television show on my laptop. I had precisely zero social life outside of school.

I had never been on date, nor would I ever, I often despaired. My life would be consumed by studies, words, numbers, tests, and exams. Even as I hurried through the last problem and then opened my notes on required terminology, I found my mind wandering. Calculus terms became something else, became what most things became in my mind:

Poetry.

I watched my mechanical pencil scribble across the page of my journal, which was always open near me, no matter where I was. I did not try to understand the things pouring onto the page. When my pencil stopped moving, I read what I’d written:

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THE CALCULUS OF BOREDOM

The average rate of change

Seems to define my axis of rotation.

The area of an ellipse

Definitely defines the constant term

Of my life.

My daily pattern of being

Is the end behavior of my

Bounded function.

Degenerate, derivative, differential,

Essential discontinuity,

Explicit differentiation,

Explicit function:

Exponential Decay.

I have no me,

I have only

The conditional convergence

Of their constant term

Of continuous function

Of disapproval.

Each decision seems to be

Part of a chain rule,

An annulus,

Or,

The region between two concentric circles which have different radii; or,

In other words…

My

Fucking

Parents.

I sighed, feeling a whisper of pleasure at the words. They expressed a part of me. I had four notebooks filled with poetry from the last few years, and the current one was two-thirds filled already. Poetry was my only pleasure in life, the only thing that allowed me any personality, any expression. Everything else was school and speech therapy and piano lessons. I liked the piano, and I knew I was good at it, but it wasn’t for me. It was expected of me, demanded of me.

I shook myself out of my reverie and returned to memorizing the terms for the current lesson, as well as the ones for next week. If I got next week’s homework at least started, if not finished, I might even manage some kind of free time. I finished the calc terms and moved on to economics, which was easy enough that I could put on headphones and listen to music. The first song to come up on my Pandora playlist was “Demons” by Imagine Dragons, and god, it was so apropos. So perfect.

I finished econ and was halfway through my reading assignment for my eighteenth-century Lit class—which actually counted for college credit—when my phone rang. My cell phone was the one concession my parents made toward me having some kind of social life. I was allowed to have a cell phone and an unlimited text and data plan, so I could text as much as I want. The only catch was, my parents would, without warning, take my phone and read through my text messages to make sure there was nothing untoward occurring in my life—where untoward equals fun or exciting or in any way interesting.

Even my private thoughts sounded like calculus equations.

The only thing that I kept private from my parents was my poetry, and I hid those notebooks in a shoebox buried in the depths of my closet. The notebook currently in use was never out of my sight, either in my purse or my backpack, disguised between textbooks and notebooks filled with school notes. I would rather burn my notebooks than let anyone read them; they expressed my every thought, my every emotion, all my deepest, darkest demons. To read my notebooks would be to read the very substance of my soul.

I answered my phone without looking at it, since only Jill and Nell had my number. “Hello?”

“Uh…hey. Becca, it’s Jason…uh…Jason Dorsey.”

Jason Dorsey was the very last person on the planet I’d ever expect to call me at seven-thirty on a Friday night, especially when I knew for a fact he had a date with Nell tonight.

“Jason? How did you get my number, and why are you calling me?” I couldn’t help sounding a little bitchy; I’d been in love with Jason Dorsey since we were in fourth grade and he punched Danny Morelli in the nose for making fun of my stutter. I’d been in love with Jason Dorsey since forever, but he didn’t even know I existed, except as Nell’s awkward friend.

I might have been a little angry at Jason, just in general.

“Well, I…you see…” He sounded unlike himself, meaning he sounded hesitant and not at all his cocky, arrogant self. “Um, god, I’m making a mess of this.”

“I do not even know what it is you are making a mess of, Jason. Just say what you called me to say.” I was nervous and trying not to be a bitch, so I sounded formal and stilted from my effort to not stutter.




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