This is my first story posted here. It's a short one (3 pages on Word) and sad, but not angsty. I got the idea after getting to know my math partner, but none of the events that happen here actually happened. No one I mention is based off of a real person. Blah blah blah. Just read it.

--Math Class--

Seriously? High school is not as big as a drag that everyone says it is. I haven’t got a lot of homework, or anything. After all, it’s just school, man. That’s my philosophy anyway. Most people agree with me. There’s a couple who don’t, they get all psyched up about school. They’re all like, “Whoo-hoo! Let’s study!” Me, I’ve never been like that. Like, ever.

But if there is one class I enjoy, it’s science. Like, lead me to the bottle rockets, man. A totally awesome class, especially with Postma teaching. That guy is too cool. My lowest rated class is probably English. Like, who wants to fool around with words? Boring. It’s like -- read this, read that, answer these question, write really long papers about it, blah, blah, blah.

Math is a little above English, just ‘cause it’s not so girly. The math teacher this year, Garter, is so dull. And his voice is annoying to no end. Like, somewhere between an adolescent and PeeWee Herman. On the plus side, the girl I sit net to in math class, who I answer all the class work questions with, is one of those “Whoo-hoo! Study!” people, Christina Lohler. It’s pure luck I’ve got her, ‘cause she moved her after, like, AP math started, so she’s still in normal math.

She’s in, like, all the extracurricular classes that don’t have to do with sports -- Book Club, Science Olympiad, Math Club, or whatever it’s called, student council, you get my point. Some of the guys I hang out with like to bug her, ask her out. It’s funny, ‘cause she’ll be all like, “no thank you” even though she knows we don’t really mean it. Christina’s always good for a laugh.

Anyway, she knows all the answers, and even though she won’t tell me, she will show me, and it’s way better than being with Brian way back in the last row falling behind everyone and not staying on task. That’s what Garter always says, “Stay on task, Rob, stay on task.” He’s so annoying.

But, now I’m with Christina (who, by the way, hates being called Christi. Any chance they get, my friends will call her that.) and Garter never says “Stay on task” to us, because we’ll be one problem ahead. I don’t know how she does it, but right after Garter has been droning on and on about something, I’ll say, “What he just say?” and she’ll be all, “Oh, he was talking about the now-next equations we wrote for our homework.” I’ll say, “We had homework?” and BAM! she takes out a list of, like, twenty equations, and Garter’s all, “Well done, Christina,” and of course, she gets them all right.

I swear, that girl must have no spare time at all, with all the things she does AND all her homework. I hardly seem to have enough time to do much, and all I’m in is soccer (man, that sport rocks.) One time I wondered what would happen to her if she started doing a bunch of sports, too. I mean, can you picture someone like Christina in a cheerleader’s outfit? The thought of it made me laugh and disrupt Bible class, when we were discussing something incredibly deep. The teacher about killed me.

Oops, I forgot. Christina Lohler also leads in chapel. Well, she used to, but I guess freshmen -- um, freshpeople? -- are like too small or something to do that, because I think she would ask the teacher who heads it if she wanted to do it. She isn’t that bad of a singer, but she only sings there. There was a musical being put on last year (in the 8th grade) and she didn’t try out. I don’t know why not, maybe she can’t act.

In math, this one time, a week ago probably, we were doing percents and all, it was talking about what percent of this school had violet (you know, that deep purple) eyes. “I’ve never met anyone with violet eyes,” I say, kind of off-handedly.

“I think you have. Frequently, they are mistaken for a brown or dark blue,” Christina replies, putting away her sheet.

“Really?” I ask, not really caring.

“Sure,” she says, and takes off her glasses. “I expect you thought my eyes were blue.” I look into her eyes, and sure enough, they’re violet, not blue. Suddenly, I’m taking in her face for what seems to be the first time. I guess Christina has had this happen before, because she slips her glasses back on and says, “I know.”

“Well, if you know --”

“I tried wearing contacts a few years ago, but I had a reaction to them, and I was on medication for a long time. It was a disaster. I’ve got to stick with my glasses,” she explains. Her face is back to what I’m used to, but Christina’s un-spectacled face is fixed in my brain.

So, today, she gets to class ahead of me (like she always does) and she is drawing something. She’s a pretty good drawer, too. I don’t see any of it, because right when I walk through the door, and she sees me, she quickly slips it back into her binder pocket, behind the first page. “Hey, what were you drawing?” I ask her as I sit down next to her.

“Nothing,” she answers calmly. “Did you remember to do problem number 9?”

“There’s a problem number 9?”

She laughs, and an unexpected smile lights up her face. She had lied! I feel my mouth open in shock. Christina laughs harder.

Then, Garter comes in and Christina is silent. Her smile fades away and she takes out her pencil, flipping to the math section of her notebook. Garter goes on about something tonelessly, and suddenly says, “You may begin.”

“Begin?” I hiss at her. “Begin wha -- ”

“Rob, don’t you ever listen?” Christina’s violet eyes look tired, like every time I fail, there is a brick added to a heavy bag she has to carry around. Whoa. I think, why didn’t I ever see this in her before? She looks down at her pencil and a heavy sigh comes out as she gets up to sharpen her broken pencil.

I watch her walk away. My hands are doing it before I even, like, think of it. I reach over and pull back the front page in the pocket. My own not-so-violet eyes catch sight of a sketch of a girl, sitting under a tree. I can’t think of how she did it, but Christina has somehow put pain, loss, and loneliness in the girl’s face and pose and all. In Christina’s neat script on the top of the page is the picture’s grim title. Real Life.

I thought I was surprised before, when Christina had joked with me. Now, I see another dimension to her -- this pain she must be feeling. For who could draw something like that and feel no loss?

Yikes. She’s walking back to me, rubbing her sharpened pencil point lightly with a long finger. “All right,” she starts, sitting down and opening her math book. “Problem 24a. The Middleville football team is raising money for their equipment. . .”

Brian, meanwhile, is busy goofing off with Mark, and I see him grin at me, like “Ooh, glad I’m not you, sucker.” I feel the back of my neck get red, like it does when I’m angry. Something inside me goes, like, “Dude, two weeks ago you would’ve agreed with him.”

I steal a small glance at Christina, who has evidently given up on me, because she’s busy doing work, and see that I don’t see her as someone, who is, like, just someone to make fun of. It’s like I’ve just realized she was a real person. I scratch my head. Weird.

“You’d better get started, Rob, unless you want homework,” says Christina, with a look at my totally empty paper.

“Right,” I mumble.

Later on that day, I’m eating lunch with my group -- Caleb, Brian, Mark, Rick, and Pete -- and Christina crosses the hallway. The guys catch sight of her and look at each other, like, “Here’s a chance to have some fun.” Only, only, it was more like a pack of lions looking at a gazette and licking their lips.

“Hey, Christi, baby!” shouts Caleb, ‘cause she’s still, like, pretty far off. “Christi, you’re so hot. Go out with me!”

“No, thank you,” she says, like, really quiet, as usual, but loud enough for us to hear her polite refusal.

The whole table -- except me, for some reason -- erupts. Like a volcano, only, with, like, laughter, not lava. Christina keeps walking. I feel my neck get red when I notice that a single tear has fallen from her violet eyes. Rick, who’s next to me, looks at me and is all, like, “Yo, Robby, are you okay?”

I rub my neck. “Um, yeah. Er -- headache.”

Christina catches my eye, and there is that same look -- that burdened down look. “Why didn’t you stand up for me, Rob?” Her violet eyes ask me.

I feel a weird thing happening in my stomach, and my neck is still red, and I look down at my sandwich so I can’t see her. Why does she expect me to come to her rescue anyway, I think to myself as I dig in, suddenly starving.

She’s just a girl in my math class, I remember. I touch my neck when I think no one will notice. Still hot.

“You sure you’re fine, Rob?” Rick asks me again, almost a little serious. What is it, have I turned green?

“Yeah! I’m fine, Rick, just leave me alone!” I say, louder than I meant. But really, like, what is he going on about? I’m fine. I’m totally fine.

“Whoa, Rob,” says Pete.

“Shut up!” I say, suddenly angry with everyone. They stare at me as I leave the table and dump my half-eaten lunch in the trash. I can, like, feel their eyes follow me.

Christina is just three strides away. A part of me is, like, “C’mon, Rob, have you gone mental? It’s just Christina!”

I stop and lean against the wall, hoping I look cool, not like the idiot I feel like. My neck still, like, burns a little, but less. What’s wrong with me? It’s Christina. It’s just a girl from my math class.

My group walks past, and Mark and Brian both give me looks that are, like, “Yo, Rob, you comin’?”

Of course I am. This is my group -- my identity. I join the ranks, walking in stride with Caleb. “Dude,” he whispers, “You cool?” He’s only asking me if I’m, like, all good now and am not gonna snap his head off. But I thought about his question. Am I cool? Is Christina just a girl in my math class? Am I back to normal, ready to forget what happened in math class? Will I forget what Christina looks like without her glasses and that she has violet eyes?

“Yeah, I’m cool.”

The next day, we change seats in math class.

-- end --

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