Falling for math

1. Lily, the new student

"Please tell me you're kidding." I said incredulously.

"Oh, trust me Lily, I wish I was." Haley answered, nodding her head in a dramatic way.

After that, we managed to stay serious for a few more seconds before the both of us burst into giggles.

"Well shit". I started saying before something caught my eye on the road ahead of us. A car was coming directly towards us, and it was coming fast.

"What is this guy doing?" Haley asked, her voice betraying a growing panic.

As I saw the car coming closer, my entire body froze in dread. The headlights were quickly becoming more visible to the point of completely blinding us, I pressed on the brake as hard as I could and honked, hoping the opposite driver would correct his course before colliding with us. But no such thing happened and in the next second, the driver hit us straight on at full speed. In a last desperate attempt to save us, I tried correcting the trajectory of the car, but the force of the hit sent us tumbling over the edge of the small cliff we had been driving on. As the car broke through the safety barriers of the road, I heard Haley scream.

"NO!" I yelled as Haley's screams turned into the ringing of my alarm. "No..." I repeated in a defeated whisper.

A nightmare, it was just a nightmare, I tried to reassure myself to calm my harsh breathing. I was safe, I was in my bed on the morning of my first last day of high school. I stared at myself in the mirror across my bed, I stared at the tears running down my cheeks, reassuring myself that I was okay. But she wasn't, a voice in my head whispered.

**

"Good morning, Lil!" my mother greeted me as I entered the kitchen. "How did you sleep?" She asked as she kissed me gently on my forehead.

"I slept okay." I lied. "Though I am a little nervous for my first day."

"Don't worry sweetie, everything will be okay. And we've seen the school, it looked great! Come on, eat some pancakes, it will solve all your anxiety." My mom said, handing me a plate with chocolate chip pancakes.

I took the plate, trying to hide a nervousness pancakes wouldn't be able to fix. Starting in a new school in a completely different state was worrying me more than I'd like to admit. I had always hated change, and yet, after what happened, my mother and I both agreed it would be best to start over somewhere new. Somewhere that wasn't tinted with the scars of the past. But now that we were here, I realized those scars were always going to be with me, no matter where I was.

"Alright Lil, let's get you to school, we wouldn't want you to be late on your first day now, would we?" My mother said, dangling the car keys directly in front of my face.

I followed her outside, taking a deep breath and looking at the sky before getting in the car. The drive to school was over quickly and before I realized it, I was saying goodbye to my mother and walking down the long alley leading to the entrance of my new school. I anxiously entered the hall and was immediately assaulted by the heavy noise of teenagers happy to be reunited with their friends. I circled around groups of people to get to the opposite end of the entrance hall, wondering how one could be so loud at 8 in the morning. I flinched as a few boys were slamming each other against the lockers and laughing like it was the funniest thing they'd ever done. I made my way to my first class, easily navigating through the school's hallways as the principal had given my mother and I a tour of the school last week.

**

On Tuesday, I navigated through the noisy hallways a little more confidently seeing as yesterday had gone okay. I made my way to my first class of the day: AP theoretical mathematics. As strange as this could sound to some people, I loved math, and I was excited to see what we were going to learn in this class.