Between Maia and Ainsley, it’s safe to say that if they had to pick their favorite person to be with, my name would not be uttered from their lips. I take no offense to this. Neither girl is my favorite person.
I didn’t like Maia’s lack of critical thinking or Ainsley’s blatant classism. In return, there were a few things about me that they couldn’t stand.
Maia didn’t like my stinginess with homework answers or the way I encouraged her to find her own solutions. She complains about the way our assignments always give her a headache. But there was an incident last week where she plagiarized my essay, claiming that she was only seeking inspiration. She had a hard time explaining that to our teacher when she copied every word down to my name printed at the top of the page. She was almost as bad at cheating as the kids in my middle school, except unlike her, they would never get caught. Since then, we were distant, which was a shame because she was the nicer of the pair.
Getting caught hasn’t stopped her from asking me for help. She doesn’t see what she did as wrong, once even going as far as pawing at the papers in my bookbag. I make sure to say no to those requests.
Eventually, Maia hired a tutor. But ‘tutor’ was a generous description for the broke college student she paid to do her homework. She constantly tells us that he’s cute, a reminder that she paid for both a boost in her grades and eye candy. It’s against her faith to date him, but it doesn’t stop her from fantasizing about the possibilities.
Ainsley doesn’t like me because she doesn’t understand why I don’t share her unadulterated resentment of Natalie. I wish I could openly hate Natalie as much as she did. If I had known how she felt about my former friend a year ago, my bitterness would have rivaled hers. But I’m afraid to join her in the gossip. I hesitate to tear into the carcass of what I had left with Natalie, knowing how she can destroy me.
If there is anyone I’ll never tell my secret to, it’s Ainsley. She’s too ruthless. She thinks all of the homeless people in New York should be rounded up and killed off. It annoys me when she says things like that so casually. She actually reads the history books we’re assigned for class and she knows better than to be who she is. But nothing I say can convince her not to enjoy the simple stupidity of cruelty.
I wish both girls were stuck abroad for longer, trapped in snowstorm limbo. But instead, they were in class, with warped faces hidden beneath bandages.
A part of me wants us to like each other more. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I don’t know if I should give them heart cookies from my family’s bakery. I wonder if I don’t, that I might be the only girl in my class without a card or a treat.
It’s odd that this is bothering me. I barely have time to breathe with the sheer amount of assignments that my teachers have given me. Essays from English and History, problem sets from Calculus, and a project from Physics all somehow manage to have a due date in the same week. I’m so stressed that I can’t eat, spending hours at the library in terse silence next to Yuey. I learn the art of navigating the school’s digital archive for research and ignoring my hunger until it becomes a whisper in my stomach.
The teachers know that the student body is wealthy and smart. While other high schools pack their students’ agenda with dull paperwork, the staff at Two Bridges likes to be creative with challenging homework. We’re forced to use our brains, something that the school is proud of and that the students despise.
Even with the mental workout I face in class and at home every day, my thoughts still linger over Valentine’s Day. I didn’t care about romantic love. I did not want to be touched or held in the way that Natalie had constantly fantasized about in our freshman year. Quite frankly, I may be asexual, the way I am utterly unable to conceive having a life partner in any shape or form.
The truth is that I am nobody’s favorite person. This has been an essential fact about my existence ever since I was conceived. Some days it bothers me more than others. Most days, I brush it off like a piece of lint stuck to my uniform.
Today, it feels like everyone in the world has their person except me. Maia and Ainsley have each other, married in selfishness and snobbery. In the library, Mikael and Natalie have their heads bent toward each other, nearly touching. Next to me, Yuey constantly checks her phone for messages from someone whose name comes up as Chinese characters I can’t decipher.
Everyone is tethered to someone with an invisible string. At home, the strings of my mother and father are tied firmly around my brother. They wrap around my sister and splinter around me, breaking because there is no more love to give.
I am free, untangled in the web of relations. Somehow, claustrophobia wells up in my chest anyway. There is no one that I can tell about this feeling.
I focus on the calculus problems instead. I solve and test solutions to complex equations, punching the math into my calculator. The repetitive nature of the work soothes me. I forget about human webs and create mathematical ones on graphing paper.
In class, I fill out a pop quiz and the teacher announces the date of our midterm exam. Stress spikes my pulse. I don’t know how I will fit in time to study on top of all the other work I’ve been assigned.
“Join the class group chat,” Yuey advises. “There’s no time to get all of the answers by yourself.”
I frown, unable to hide my distaste for what were effectively Two Bridges’ cheating rings. I never needed them before, priding myself on finishing my work with my own efforts. Ordinarily, I would tell Yuey not to even consider it. This time, the willpower for refusal escapes me.
“Look, I’ll add you to them anyway. Use them if you’re desperate,” she says, reading my mind.
How would that make me any better than Maia? I push the thought away.
Several notifications pop up on my phone. I silence them, but not before I read through them and scroll through the chat members. I realize with a pang of loneliness that my whole class was on there except me. I am the only student who did not use the chats, a fact that makes me feel cold and proud.
But it makes sense in the grand scheme of things. I hate asking for help, only allowing myself to bother Yuey about a few questions during our study sessions. I work the hardest out of all my peers, not only because I have to, but because I want to. Figuring out the solution was part of the fun.
I look through old study sheets, cringing at the confidence with which my peers gave each other the wrong answers. Using the chats would be like asking a chorus of idiots for help.
“They do that on purpose,” Mikael tells me when I meet him at a library after school.
We were divvying up responsibilities for the science project. We already figured out most of the technicalities during the snowstorm, and we agreed to meet for the first time in person to smooth out any problems before doing our parts alone. That was one thing he and I had in common. We worked best in solitude and planned on meeting one last time later when we put the pieces together. I felt that I could ask him about the chats, seeing the way students constantly asked him for help in them.
“It’s how everyone competes for the best grades and rankings. Misleading other people is the easiest way to do better than them.”
“Yuey told me to use it if I need extra help.”
He nods in agreement. “I wouldn’t rely on them, but if you have no time, it’s faster to work off of something someone has already completed, even if it’s inaccurate. You can make the corrections and keep the right answers to yourself.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to share those answers with the chat?”
“Not if you want to keep a higher grade than them. Some people don’t deserve it. Most of our class leeches off the study sheets. No one really puts in the work like we do.”
“But you help Natalie,” I find myself saying. I curse myself for bringing her up again.
“I get extra credit for those study sessions,” he reminds me. “She doesn’t need my help as much as she claims she does. I promised to study with her until midterms were over. The teachers know I need to do my own work.”
A flicker of annoyance passes over his amiable features. For a moment, I see the competitive Mikael, the boy who would do anything to maintain his number one spot in the school. He was someone who would give the wrong answers with a smile on his face.
“If you ever need help, you can ask me,” he says. “We’re sharing the grade for the project.”
“I will,” I reply, knowing full well to be careful about the things I reveal to him.
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