Solving for Ex

Chapter 9

Kid? Kid? My self-confidence sagged around my ankles. I may have been a class below him, but Brendan had never cared about that.  What the hell was going on?

We walked to the auditorium for practice, him making small talk and me trying to swallow hard and hold back tears. I tried to tell myself it was no big deal. We’d get to the auditorium, I’d help him set up, I’d mention how I’d found a whole bunch of new practice tests. We’d sit down and I’d show off by working one that, as far as I knew, he’d never seen before.

It was going to be fine. Just fine.

I pushed open the swinging doors with the arm I didn’t have swung around his waist, and my heart stopped, jumped out of my chest, and rolled down the long carpeted aisle. Clunked against the wooden front of the stage.

I smelled her almost before I saw her. Never had I thought I would hate the smell of flowers so violently.

Sofia.

She wore a blue flowered dress that was a little too swingy and a lot too low-cut for the frigid mid-October Pittsburgh wind that howled outside the school’s walls. And the only thing perkier than the cleavage bouncing out of the top of it was her hair and her smile.

“Brendan!” she squealed as she skipped toward the back of the auditorium to meet us. Brendan dropped his arm from my waist and stepped forward, away from me, to meet her. She jumped at him, throwing her arms around his neck. Even though he looked a little awkward doing it, he put both arms around her waist and she lifted up off the ground a little.

The same way he always hugged me. Except today, when he hadn’t.

She linked her arm with his and walked with him to the table and chairs someone—I’d be willing to bet she—had already set up for our second meeting. I heard her blabbing about how she’d been concerned about how some of the team members would approach some question, and shouldn’t we do more trials to time people, and we should probably also do drills for speed, shouldn’t we?

Brendan knew all that. But the way he was looking at her, you’d think he didn’t. He was watching her with all the fascination of someone who was hearing this stuff for the first time. Someone who hadn’t led the team to State last year.

It was like Sofia was preaching the freaking Mathletics gospel, and he was buying every damn word as the God’s honest truth.

I trudged down to the front of the auditorium and settled in the chair next to Brendan. Sofia was in the seat across from him, and kept reaching across to touch him on the forearm.

 “You know, I’d never actually thought of it that way before,” Brendan said to something Sofia had just been chattering about. Probably it was as insipid as the tone of her voice.

I was suddenly having trouble getting air into my lungs again. And the auditorium, which had seemed so large when we first walked in, was shrinking around me. This couldn’t be happening now. Could not. And if I could get this one thing done, it wouldn’t happen again, I was sure of it.

“So, Brendan,” I said, steeling myself. “I know that school dances are seriously lame, but sometimes something’s just too good to pass up.” I reached back to swing my bag around, just like I’d practiced a thousand times.

“Are you talking about Sadie?” Sofia piped up. God, I wished this Sadie Hawkins shirt was a mallet so I could beat her over her squeaky little head with it. “Can you believe that Brendan ever thought those things were tired? Don’t worry. I’m making him go with me. I’d never miss a tolo.”

Tears flooded my eyes. No way was this happening. No way had she asked him to Sadie Hawkins before me. No way had she found the one thing I would get the guts to do to tell Brendan how much I liked him and stomp all over it.

I must have looked like I didn’t understand what she was saying, with the blinking and all, because she lowered her head and spoke a little more loudly and slowly, and her smile got just a little bigger.  “In California? We called them tolos. Girls asked the guys? Well, anyway. I told Brendan there was no excuse for missing one of the best dances ever—not even studying for math.”

She looked absolutely giddy with her own brilliance. The room spun around me and I wanted to vomit.

Then, I heard the telltale sound of the auditorium door swinging open.

Vincent strolled down the aisle, his arm wrapped around Britt’s waist. She stared up at him like a puppy dog. “So, are we doing this Mathletes thing or what?” he said, grinning. He sidled up to me and nudged his shoulder into mine. “I heard you’re the up-and-coming star.”

“I was just telling Ashley here about tolo, and how fun it is, and how me and Brendan wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sofia squeaked.

Me and Brendan? Were they a couple now? I studied Brendan. He was shuffling around a bunch of the papers containing competition questions on his desk. If they were together, he was certainly doing a poor job of being excited about it.

“Aw, a tolo?” Vincent said. “I loved those! Too bad guys can’t go without a date.”

By this point, a couple more kids on the team had started to trickle in.

“You’ll take me, right, Ashley? Don’t let the poor new kid be left hanging at home.”

I should have made a joke about how he could have found any girl in the school he wanted to take him. But damn me, I looked up into those warm, soft eyes, and they looked at me the same way they had a week ago on the roof, like I was really beautiful, like I was something to be enchanted with.

And just like that, the shirt I’d envisioned handing across the table to Brendan a hundred times got passed into Vincent’s hands instead. “Why not?” I said shakily. “And I already have a shirt.”

“Aw, sweet!” Vincent said as he unrolled it and read it for everyone. “Do not drink and derive.” The entire little crowd cracked up. Obviously everything that came out of Vincent’s mouth was inherently more hilarious than anything I could have said. Britt stared at me with deadpan, murderous eyes, then mumbled something about the ladies’ room and stalked out through the side door. It was just a stupid Sadie Hawkins—she could cut in on a snowball dance if she wanted to, anyway.

Then my gaze caught Brendan’s. It was moving between Vincent, the shirt, and me. His expression was a perfect cross between realization, sadness, and—did I see a little embarrassment? He knew that shirt was for him. And he knew I was going to ask him. And he knew what a damn big deal that was. The only question was – what would he have said?