Carol hated math. She’d told herself this since the first time she stared at a chalkboard full of numbers in elementary school. Equations were her enemy, a labyrinth of symbols designed to mock her. She could fight, she could strategize, but give her a polynomial, and she might as well be reading hieroglyphics. That’s why she found herself here, perched on the edge of a bed far too luxurious to belong to anyone in their small, nothing-special town, trying not to drown in the warmth of a room that felt entirely alien to her.

Her so said BFF was sprawled on her stomach next to Carol, the textbook open in front of her, a pencil spinning idly between her fingers. Her legs were bent at the knees, feet occasionally swaying back and forth as she explained something about quadratic equations in a voice so calm and even that it made Carol’s own frustration feel embarrassingly childish.

“So, if you just isolate x , you’ll see how the square root—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Carol muttered, though she didn’t. Her hand tightened around her pencil, and she stared at the numbers on the page like they might rearrange themselves out of pity.

“No you don’t.”

It wasn’t the math that had her distracted. It was the fact that their legs were nearly touching, her knee brushing against hers every time one of them shifted. It was the way her voice was low and soothing, like she was trying to coax a skittish animal out of hiding. It was the way her hair spilled over her shoulder in loose waves, catching the light as if she was a movie star.

Carol shook her head, trying to banish the thought. She was straight. She knew this. She’d kissed boys before, dated one for a few months last year. She wasn’t the kind of girl who got distracted by her best—

“You’re not even paying attention, Care.”

Course she wasn’t!