The Square root of falling: A Brazos High Novella

by Sparling, Amy

  Now that I can officially drive, I don’t have to ride the bus to Abby’s house anymore, and she won’t have to ride the bus to mine. We live only a few blocks away from each other, which puts us on the same school bus. The driver knows us well enough now to let us get off at each other’s houses, even though that’s technically against the rules without a parent note.

  Now, we don’t need notes. We have wheels.

  I pull up to Abby’s house right as our former school bus stops in front of it. Abby has three little sisters and they all pile out of the bus.

  “Not fair!” Maria says, crossing her arms over her chest. “We have to ride the stupid bus and you get to ride with Jules? That is so not fair.”

  “Yeah it is,” Abby says, rolling her eyes. “When you’re in high school you can bum rides off your friends.”

  We head inside to the mouth-watering smell of Abuela’s tamales. Abby and her sisters live with her dad’s mom while her parents are in Mexico helping out her mom’s parents who are both in failing health. It’s already been a year that her parents have been gone, and I think Abby has felt really pressured to take up the role of guardian and boss while they’re away. That’s because Abuela is just way too nice. She doesn’t discipline Abby’s sisters, and they’re all pretty obnoxious girls between the ages of eight and thirteen.

  That’s why we lock ourselves in Abby’s bedroom when we hang out, so the girls can’t annoy us. Sorry, not sorry.

  “I really wish my parents would get back,” Abby says as she tosses her backpack on her bed and then plugs her phone into the charger by her nightstand. “But then I feel terrible saying that, because they basically won’t come back until my grandparents die and don’t need them anymore, and ugh, what kind of horrible person am I?”

  “You can want your parents back and also not want your grandparents to die,” I say. It sounds a little morbid, but I mean it in a nice way. “It’s okay to be stressed out.”

  She sighs and blows the hair out of her face. “I know. I’m just tired of being stressed out. Seems like everything I do is for my sisters or Abuela and not for me.”

  “Well, I have a car now, so let’s do something this weekend. Whatever you want.”

  Abby frowns. “I have to babysit this weekend.”

  Abuela’s one vice is Saturday night bingo down at the VFW hall.

  “Bummer,” I say. “Maybe Sunday?”

  “Church,” Abby says.

  “I mean after church.” She goes to mass every Sunday morning but is usually home by noon.

  She shakes her head. “Abuela volunteered me to help set up the booths for the festival next weekend. My whole weekend is shot.”

  I didn’t realize my best friend was so stressed out lately. I guess I haven’t really been around much this summer. I spent most of my days being mopey and heartbroken and she put up with all of it. It’s time for me to be a better friend.

  “I’ll come over and help you babysit,” I say. “I’ll bring junk food and we’ll binge watch cheesy romance movies.”

  “You sure?” Abby says. “You hate romance movies.”

  “No…I temporarily hated them this summer. I’m good now.”

  Abby gives me a side-eyed look.

  “I swear I’m all better now!”

  “Just last week you were dreading going back to school because you might see you-know-who,” she says, whispering that last part as if Trevor’s name was Voldemort.

  I shrug. “I’m over it. My heart was broken, but I’m all good now. I decided to dedicate myself to school, and to my friends, and to like, join clubs and stuff.”

  Abby’s expression is one hundred percent skeptical and it makes me laugh. “I’m serious!” I say.

  “Okay, well I believe you. But only because you’re my best friend and I know you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  She turns on her television and we lay across her bed to begin watching our favorite show, a witty comedy that we’ve seen a million times, while we talk about our classes. I don’t mention my first period math class. I’m still not quite recovered from what happened today. I spent all fifty minutes of class chatting with Jake freaking Johnson as if we were friends or something. It was weird. And he is so, so hot. Not that it matters.

  My phone is on the bed next to Abby’s phone, and they’re both positioned right between us while we watch TV. When the familiar beep of a new Snapchat message fills the air, we both look over because it could be from either one of our phones. But mine is the one lighting up.

  “Oh. My. God,” Abby says, eyes so wide they look like golf balls. “Jake Johnson just Snapped you? What!?”

  I grab my phone and try really, really hard to act like it’s no big deal. “He’s my math partner,” I say, opening his message.

  Did you get Mr. Casey’s email?

  “Jake Johnson!” Abby says while I type out a reply.

  No? I’ll check it now.

  “Jake Johnson.”

  I look up at Abby. “Stop repeating his name. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is a huge deal,” she says, slapping my arm several times in a row like she just can’t contain herself. “He’s the—”

  “—Hottest guy in school, I know.” I roll my eyes. “For being such a player, he’s actually kind of a nerd at math.”

  “WHY. IS. HE. MESSAGING. YOU?” Abby says.

  “Our teacher is insane and he’s making us partner up with someone and work with them all year.” I tell myself if I act like it’s no big deal, maybe I’ll actually believe it. Because, no matter how quiet I’ve been all day, internally, I’m kind of freaking out about being Jake’s partner. After first period was over, I had three girls confront me in the hallway about how jealous they were or how they wanted to switch partners with me. It was weird and also strangely exhilarating.

  I check my school email and see a message from my math teacher, which was sent out to everyone. He gave us a link to a Google form that’s a bunch of random questions. He wants us to fill out the answers twice. Once for ourselves, and other time with what we think our partner would answer.

  I open my Snapchat app and reply to Jake.

  What kind of crap assignment is this?

  lol, right? Here are all my answers so you can cheat. Maybe get a couple of them wrong on purpose so it doesn’t look like cheating.

  maybe this is a trick? Maybe he wants us to have the perfect answers so it proves we “worked together” like he wants us to do?

  You’re right….. that might be it. Let’s do perfect answers. Will you send me yours?

  sure thing

  I look up from my phone and see my best friend staring at me, her jaw hanging open. “How on earth are you just lying there texting Jake freaking Johnson as if it’s nothing?”

  I roll my eyes. “You know, I’m pretty sure his middle name isn’t freaking.”

  Now Abby rolls her eyes. “I’m just stunned, that’s all. My best friend is now friends with the most popular and hottest guy in school. That makes me like…secondhand popular myself.”

  I snort out a laugh.

  Abuela calls for us from the kitchen, saying the tamales will be ready in ten minutes. Normally, the sound of Abuela’s amazing cooking is the greatest thing I can hear all day. But right now, I’m barely thinking about the tamales…

  I’m thinking about Jake.

  And how I have a screenshot of all his answers to this stupid survey thing. They’re kind of personal questions, too. Why am I suddenly eager to see what his answers are? It shouldn’t matter.

  “I should probably go,” I say, making an exaggerated frown. “Our teacher just assigned a lot of work that’s due tomorrow.”

  “Can’t you stay for dinner?” Abby asks, pausing the TV.

  It’s a reasonable question. Dinner is almost ready, after all, and Abuela’s tamales are to die for.

  But something weird happens to my entire body, because suddenly I don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m shaking my head and looking s
ad and lying to my best friend.

  “Sorry, it’s important. I wish I could stay but I should really get home.”

  Abby walks me to the front door, and the smell of a delicious dinner that I’m totally abandoning follows us as well. I can’t believe I’m ditching out on my best friend just to get home and read through Jake’s answers. But I’m so eager to see what he has to say that I can’t help myself.

  Something is seriously wrong with me.

  Six

  Jake

  It’s not weird to add your math partner on Instagram. At least, that’s what I tell myself. She’s pretty easy to find because her Instagram username is the same as her Snapchat. Mr. Casey wants us to stay in constant contact, after all, so that’s what I’m doing. At least that’s my excuse.

  I scroll through Jules’ account and look at her pictures. She spends a lot of time with her best friend, Abby Pena, who is a girl I vaguely know from the two years I took American Sign Language class in junior high. Jules doesn’t have many other pictures of herself on her profile, but she does post pictures of her cat occasionally. It’s cute. I wish there were more pictures of herself, though. I want to roll my eyes at how pathetically pathetic I’m being. Here I am dying to look at her beautiful face on the small screen of my phone. It’s official – I’m crushing hard. This should be easy for me. I should be able to pick out a girl I like and ask her to be my girlfriend. Instead, I’m lying on my bed after school, stalking her Insta like I’m some kind of creep.

  The app has a new notification. I click on it and then sit up in bed. Jules just followed me back. Sweet.

  We spent the first week of school just being Snapchat friends, which wasn’t as fun because she never posts anything to her account.

  Now we’re Snapchat and Instagram friends. If I can’t get the courage to flirt with her in person, maybe I’ll get the courage to flirt with her online. I can’t believe it’s been an entire week and I’ve only talked about math with Jules. I want to talk about better things than math. Like topics that include if she likes me or not.

  I also don’t want to be weird about it.

  I’m scrolling through my Instagram page, looking at my newest posts and wondering if Jules will like any of them now that she’s following me back. It’s so weird but in a refreshing way that she didn’t already follow me. We have two thousand students at Brazos High and I have five thousand followers. Pretty much everyone already follows me, but she didn’t.

  I both love and hate that fact. For one, maybe she’s not obsessed with me like other girls are. Maybe she could get to know the real me and get to like me as Jake Johnson, regular guy. Not Jake Johnson, hottest guy in school.

  But on the other hand… if she didn’t follow me already, maybe she doesn’t like me at all. Maybe I’m not her type. And that would really, really suck.

  I lazily watch TV for half an hour and constantly refresh my app, but Jules never likes any of my recent Instagram photos. I decide to post a new photo. Something that makes me look good, but not like I’m trying too hard.

  “Dex!” I call out. Within a few seconds, our cat Dexter comes rushing into my room. He’s solid white with blue eyes and he’s totally adorable. I tap my shoulder and he leaps up onto it, which is his favorite trick to do. With Dexter perched on my shoulder like some kind of parrot, I take a selfie of us and post it to Instagram.

  Now I wait.

  * * *

  “So let me get this straight,” Oliver says while we jog laps around the high school on Friday morning. “You want a girl to like you so you posted a random photo that has nothing to do with her and she didn’t like it and now you’re all upset about it?”

  I keep my gaze focused ahead of me as we jog. “Yeah… It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

  “That’s because it is stupid.” Oliver snorts. “Dude, you’re worrying over nothing. Just ask her out. You of all people shouldn’t worry about getting rejected.”

  Of all my team mates, I’d say Oliver is my closest friend. But even he doesn’t know my secret. Even he thinks I’ve dated several girls over the years. He, like everyone else, just thinks I keep my love life under wraps and that I don’t brag about the girls I date. So although I’ve told him about my crush on Jules, he can’t see why this is such a big deal. He has no idea that I’ve never had a girlfriend.

  We turn around the east corner of the school and keep jogging. It’s still sticky and warm this morning but at least it’s not raining like it was yesterday.

  “She’s different from other girls,” I say. “She’s not like… obsessed with me.”

  “Oh poor you,” Oliver says sarcastically. “A girl isn’t obsessed with you…”

  “Dude, I’m being serious. With most girls, it’s obvious they like me. With her… I don’t know. She’s nice to me in class but she doesn’t seem to care about me outside of class.”

  “Maybe she has a boyfriend.”

  I shake my head. “She’s single.”

  The survey Mr. Casey had us fill out on the first day of school told me that. Jules is single, sixteen years old, loves the color purple, and hates butter on her popcorn. She’s also allergic to maple syrup. I don’t know what Mr. Casey was trying to do with those surveys that were completely unrelated to math, but I’m glad he did them. I got to learn more about this girl and it only made me crush on her harder.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, man.” Oliver’s breath is ragged because he spent most of the summer break in Aruba with his parents than at home practicing soccer like the rest of us. “You’re a good-looking guy, and you’re nice. Just ask her out, man.”

  It’s easier said than done, but I’m not about to let him know that. I nod. “Yeah, I will.”

  After showering in the locker room, I head into class feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency. It’s Friday, which means if I don’t make a connection with Jules today, I’ll have to go the entire weekend before I see her again. I take a deep breath as I walk in the classroom. It’s now or never.

  Jules is sitting at her desk right next to mine. Her headphones are in and she’s bobbing her head to whatever music she’s listening to. Dang. I can’t talk to her now. I sit down and take out my math notebook. Mr. Casey warns us that today will be filled with note-taking, and the entire class grumbles about it.

  When the bell rings signaling the start of class, Jules puts her music away and I look over at her.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  “Morning,” she says back. She’s also taking out her notebook, so she doesn’t even look at me when she says it, and it crushes my soul a bit. I’m not used to girls not looking at me.

  As the class goes on, I’m having the hardest time paying attention to Mr. Casey’s lesson, and although I write out everything he does in my notebook, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s all just numbers and symbols. My mind is focused on Jules and how she smells like vanilla and coffee and how those are my two favorite scents now. I want her to like me, and I’ve never had to worry about this type of thing before. I guess this is what my friends feel like when they crush on a girl who doesn’t like them back.

  A few minutes before class is over, Mr. Casey drops a stack of papers on the podium at the front of the class. “Right Partners, come get two of these,” he says. That’s a thing he does—since the desks are set up into groups of two, he calls one of the desks the Right Partner, and the other side the Left Partner. He alternates who has to get up to get papers or turn them in. Jules gets up and walks to the front of the class, grabbing our new set of worksheets.

  When she walks back, Julio Perez is too busy flirting with the girl sitting behind him to notice Jules. He jumps backward while doing some stupid dance move thing and knocks right into Jules, knocking her off her feet.

  I reach out to catch her, and everything happens so fast. In a split second, Jules has fallen into my arms, knocking into the desk and landing in my lap. Jules is in my lap. I repeat: Jules is in my lap.

  “
You okay?” I ask, loosening my arms from around her waist. It goes against everything in me because I want to hold on tightly, but I also don’t want to be a creep.

  Her eyes are wide and frightened, and she grabs her hip, wincing. “Yeah. I think your desk bruised me, though.”

  “Sorry,” I say with a frown. “Nice one, Julio.”

  “My bad,” he says, giving Jules a guilty look before turning back to the girl he’s flirting with. What a jerk.

  “It’s fine,” Jules says. She rubs her hip and looks over at me. “If you didn’t catch me I’d probably have bashed my head on the floor, so thanks.”

  “Hey, that’s what math partners are for,” I say with a laugh. She smiles at me. My heart turns to mush.

  Then she blinks, as if she’s just realized something. “Sorry, I’ll get off you,” she says, scrambling to her feet just as the bell rings and everyone else rushes toward the door, preventing me from saying anything. But that’s probably for the best, because I’m not sure what I’d say anyway. I’m too stuck in the daydream of how good it felt to have her in my arms.

  When I told the universe I wanted a girlfriend, I didn’t expect the perfect girl to fall, quite literally, into my lap.

  But I’m so glad she did.

  Seven

  Jules

  Dear Universe:

  Why do you do this to me? I spent all week trying not to think about Jake and how cute he is and how badly I wish I could crush on him and then you literally threw me into his lap! That’s not cool, Universe.

  Not cool at all.