class of 2013 ✓

05 | self fulfilling prophecy

Since I was 10 years old, my mind has been plagued with Ivy League dreams.

Ones of a muddy color scheme and gothic architecture and half-empty coffee cups and old literature and essence of academia. Of New England air—saturated with an atmosphere of prestige and grand lights. A dream so pillowy and plush—an arms width away—drifting like a cloud. So close, yet when I woke up, it was gone.

That was the objective. My motivation. The end goal.

I had to remind myself of it constantly as I stuck my nose between the pages of my textbook and harvested all the important information to jot down. Studying for days in and days out. I'm not like Aria. My grades are a direct reflection of my work ethic, not my natural ability to grasp the curriculum quickly.

Math numbed my brain like no other. My notes of various symbols and numbers looked like a foreign language I couldn't read. Something so straightforward and simple shouldn't use up this much brainpower, but unfortunately, it did.

So I sat there in the cafeteria right before school, desperately trying to digest the concepts to no avail. All I've gotten out of this is a big headache.

Clearly, the "good at math" gene skipped me.

I needed to continue, though. I have a big midterm exam coming in a week or so, and to be honest, I have no idea what is going on. Most of the time, I feel like, for my classes, it's more about passing than actually, well, learning. For any other subject, I was able to cram and memorize the material right before the test and forget it all once I finished. Math doesn't work like that. There's a lot more analysis that needs to be done.

Groaning, I rest my forehead on my palm in an attempt to cushion the dull throbbing. Maybe if I slept on my textbooks tonight the passages would somehow diffuse themselves in my brain via osmosis.

With a muffin wrapped in plastic in hand, Nea slips onto the bench in front of me, frowning.

"You good there, Remi? Haven't seen you in a while."

"Managing," I murmur, half-listening, half-trying to understand how fucking integrals divergence works.

"How's the whole competition thing going?"

"Good."

She blinks slowly, waiting for me to elaborate. I don't. "I heard Blaise is competing with you."

"Yep."

"How's that been?"

"Good," I say, trying to work through the example problem. For some reason, I keep getting a different answer than what's listed, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. All my work lines up until the very end. Is my calculator malfunctioning? Unlikely.

"So I thought we could hang out, you know to celebrate," she says, opening the wrapper to her breakfast. "Maybe a movie night. Just you and me."

I hum in response. Jesus, I really have no idea how math works at all.

"Remi!" Nea snaps, waving a hand in front of my face. A crease forms between her brows. "Are you paying attention to me?"

"Yeah," I reply, yawning. "Totally."

"Then what did I say?"

"Movie night."

"No I asked if you are free Friday after school," she deadpans, a note of irritation laced in her tone.

"Oh, sorry. We have a fundraiser for journalism. I have to be there. Looks like it's gonna be an all-day thing."

"Okay," she breathes, "Well how about Saturday?"