Broken

Chapter 24 - Caroline

Chapter 24 - Caroline's Point of View

Calculus is boring, to say the least. My teacher Mr. Gilbert is standing at the front of the room very stiffly talking in his monotony voice. He has that kinda voice that could just put you to sleep. Calculus is a twelfth grade class here at North Hampton, so I don’t think that any of the seniors are really concerned about my and Michael’s relationship status.

If you’re wondering why myself - a junior - is taking a senior level math class, it’s because apparently I’m really good at math - according to my test scores - so when I was in eighth grade I took Algebra instead of taking it as a freshman like most people. In addition to myself, there are five other juniors in this class.

That’s good, - the fact that the seniors don’t really care about what’s going on in junior-land - because I do not do well when people are staring at me or constantly asking me questions. That’s the whole reason I have to take the anxiety pills, because I get nervous so easily. Well if it’s about me personally, that is. I can get up to the front of the room and explain a math problem or do a book report or maybe like a speech or something, and feel just fine.

Right now, I should be taking notes and writing down the problems that Mr. Gilbert is explaining on the board, but I don’t really feel like it. Michael was right, we should have skipped today, I’m so tired. That could be due to the fact that I wasn’t at school for two weeks and therefore got out of the habit of getting up for school so early.

I’m actually kinda blocking Mr. Gilbert out and staring out of the window as if there’s something captivating or something out there. There’s not. Just the junior lot. I see that car that Michael was talking about, as this classroom is on the first floor, and I try to think of why he thinks it looks weird. It looks just fine to me. A normal car. Sure, it’s kinda unconventional, like a person with a substantial amount of money would drive it, but other than that it doesn’t look too out of the norm.

“Caroline!” Mr. Gilbert calls loudly, snapping me out of my rendezvous.

I avert my head away from the window, looking towards the front of the room where he’s standing timidly. I get the feeling that that wasn’t the first time he called my name. “Yes, Mr. Gilbert?” I ask innocently.

“Do you know the answer to the problem?” He asks, gesturing to the board.

I look up at the white board, my eyes glancing over the problem. f(x) = x^3 - x. I do the mental math and clear my throat before quietly saying, “f'(x) = -1/x^2.”

Mr. Gilbert raises his eyebrows, as if shocked that I know the answer, which I guess he is since I wasn’t paying attention. But that’s only because I already learned derivatives. I don’t want to mess up my already clear understanding of them by listening to what he’s saying about them. Besides, like I said, I’m tired and I just don’t want to listen. I kinda wanna go to sleep. I’m seriously considering checking myself out of the school and then going home.

Damn, I forgot. I can’t drive. Well I guess I could, but then Michael would get all crazy about it and talk about how I could have been in another wreck or something like that. I already know, because I know the idiot so well. Also, it’s partly his fault that I’m so tired. Yesterday we left my house and went back over to his where Emma forced me to eat three cupcakes saying that they were magic and make me feel better faster. So after that, Michael and I hung out for a while over at his house, watching movies and stuff then I went back home at around nine and got ready for bed.

So I was laying in my bed at like 9:30, and then my phone rang and it was Michael. He said he wanted to talk, so we stayed on the phone until about three a.m. talking about nothing, really. You know how it is when you’re like super tired and you’re talking to someone and every other word out of your mouth is gibberish. For example, I distinctively remember it being 2:30-ish and he was like, “What are you doing?” And I believe I said something along the lines of, “Zip lining off the coast of Mount Kilimanjaro.” But in my defense, I’d watched a documentary when I was in the hospital and it was about the mountain. So yes, I blame Michael.