Solving for Ex

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-three

her mind was all disorder

I made it all the day down a hallway and around a corner, out of sight of anyone who would be wandering the halls after school, before I just had to stop. I leaned against a wall full of lockers and realized I was gasping for breath, even though I hadn’t been walking that fast. Then, the tears started to pour down my cheeks.

I was a junior, and if I wanted Mathletes to have any impact at all on my college admissions, making the state team this year was my best shot. And I hadn’t. Now I’d probably be going to that ridiculous community college down the lonely, twisting road from my parents’ house, spending the next four years living in my old bedroom and dodging the triplets. Trying to avoid all the assholes who had tormented me and, instead of going to the community college, would be staying to work in town, or worse, going to decent colleges and coming home on vacations to smirk at me and ask me why I wasn’t doing the same.

But no matter how obvious all those things were to me, I couldn’t get rid of the image of Sofia leaning into Brendan, transposed with that stupid freaking perfect score I marked in red pen at the top of her nearly pristine test. And my camera bag resting comfortably next to her designer shoes.

If I couldn’t make Mathletes by working my ass off, and if I couldn’t get Brendan to be interested in me by being his best friend, what could I do? This combined with the entire previous year meant I was pretty much a failure at life. Things absolutely couldn’t get any worse.

 Until they did.

Brendan came walking around the corner.

I pushed myself away from the wall and swiped my fingers under my eyes. “What do you want?” I didn’t even look at him, but his scent felt like it filled the entire hallway. I wanted to touch him and run away, drown in his presence and get as far away from it as possible, all at the same time. So I just froze, caught in the middle. Like I’d probably be forever.

“I could hear you crying all the way down the hall. You’re my best friend, you know? I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“You know what, Brendan? Saying you’re my best friend doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot if you don’t act like it.”

“Ashley, that’s not fair. Tell me one thing I’ve done wrong as your best friend this year.”

I mentally ran through every single thing Brendan had done that had pissed me off, but since each one was some form of “let Sofia touch you,” “let Sofia kiss you,” “look at Sofia like I wish you would look at me,” and “give Sofia my stuff,” there was no way I could tell him without revealing how I really felt, and making this whole thing worse. “I—It’s nothing.” I tried to take breaths to tamp down the angry burning in my chest.

“Seriously. What’s this about?”

 “To my best friend,” I spat, “It should be obvious. I really wanted to be on the team, and I can’t believe she made it. That she got a perfect score.”

“Sofia?”

I nodded.

“She’s smart.”

“She’s not smart,” I sniffled, not looking at him.

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you seen her scores?”

“Of course I’ve seen them, Brendan. I graded them. But I don’t believe them.”

He quirked an eyebrow, and took a decidedly defensive stance. “I don’t even know what to say to that. Everything was fair. You know that I am always fair about everything.”