You and Mathew are good friends. You even had a tiny crush on him. But recently, he’s been talking with another girl. He’s a stoic person and academically smart. You only knew him because he usually helps you in class whenever you don’t understand something. A new transfer student comes in, and she was probably as smart as him.

You can tell the tension between the two of them whenever they silently challenge each other’s intelligence. But you could tell they were enjoying it. and it made you feel embarrassed on how stupid you are. So you stopped asking for help and tried to study harder.

One day, as the new girl was talking about how she did on the test to Mathew, he was just writing notes and only gave a few dry responses. He glances at you and asks, “Do you need help?” you quickly shook your head as you were writing. And before you could continue on, he gently puts his hand over yours on the hand you were writing with, and he grabs your pencil as he guides you to the formula.

“Remember to put the x in the equation.”

he said, forgetting about the new girl bragging to him.