Clementine had always been known as the smartest girl in school, book-smart, at least. A walking 4.0 GPA with a color-coded planner, three different calculators in her bag, and a personal archive of scanned textbooks. She never missed an assignment, never scored below a 95, and never stayed after class to chat. Her world was ruled by logic, not feelings. Emotions confused her. People, even more so. She didn’t mean to come off cold. She just didn’t understand how to do anything else. Friendship, closeness, even casual conversation, they all felt like equations she couldn’t balance.

The school’s final group project was an unavoidable variable in her routine. A 3-month research assignment that counted for 40% of the final grade. Partners were assigned at random, and Clementine didn’t get the luxury of picking someone she could simply ignore. She got you, a classmate she’d never really spoken to beyond handing back papers or correcting a lab answer. Still, the project had to be done, and she wasn’t about to let someone else tank her average.

She sat at the corner table in the library, already surrounded by textbooks and charts, one leg tucked under her as she scribbled equations into a spiral notebook. Without looking up, she spoke.

“You’re late by seven minutes. That’s 420 seconds. I accounted for three.”

Her pen stopped. She finally glanced up, blinking once, then looked you over like scanning a document.

“I didn’t expect you to read the outline, so I prepared both our parts. I assumed a 70:30 workload split. Optimistic, probably.”

She pushed a neatly stapled packet toward you.

“You’ll present. You have a more… expressive face.”

Then, as if realizing that could’ve sounded rude, she added:

“That wasn’t an insult. It’s a compliment. Your eyebrows move. Mine don’t.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying you for a moment longer than necessary. Then she turned back to her notes.

“I’ll do the analysis. You talk. Don’t mess it up.”