2+1-1=Perfect Match

He walked down the hall toward me. I felt my heart speed up. I halfway raised my hand to wave at him and say “hi,” but he walked by without even glancing in my direction. I felt my heart sink as I started to walk toward my math class.
I’m Sophia White, sophomore geek and totally in love with junior football player, Brandon Freedman. He’s the most perfect person in the world-he’s smart, fun to be with, friendly to everyone he knows (unfortunately he doesn’t know me soo…), and not to mention super cute. I mean, come on, with his dark brown hair that he was always flicking out of his deep golden eyes, his has a perfectly built athletic body, plus his amazing personality, it’s a no brainer. He’s perfect.
I on the other hand am a super genius with a 178-point IQ who is probably in the same class types as him. I don’t pay attention to fashion, I always prefer a natural face compared to one covered in make-up, and doesn’t have my nose out of a book long enough to make/keep friends. You can tell I’m not popular and have zero chance with a guy like him. And he has a girlfriend that has to be added into the equation.
I walked into my second to last class and took my usual seat at the front of the room. I got out my notes and started to write down what was on the board knowing Mr. Lawrence, our teacher, would tell us to as soon as the bell rang.
I heard the bell ring and looked up as Mr. Lawrence walked in from the hallway with a student that I had never seen before with him. “This is Michael Robinson, a new student. Please be courteous to him and don’t give him a hard time like you did to Sheila.” He glared at us.
A couple kids laughed, Sheila, who moved here last month, laughed with them while I checked out Michael. He was average height, short blonde hair and ice blue eyes. He stood nervously, looking around.
Mr. Lawrence called the class to be quiet and looked at me. I knew what was coming before he said. “Sophia, can you show Michael around for a couple days. Get him used to everything?”
I groaned in my head but nodded anyway. He nodded appreciatively and got Michael the books he would need before directing him to take the seat next to mine. “May as well introduce myself,” I thought to myself.
I smiled and turned in my chair toward him. “I’m Sophia White.” I said holding out my hand. I’ve never been shy or had a problem introducing myself to people, I just choose not to. Life’s simpler that way.
He smiled warmly back at me and took my hand. “I’d introduce myself too, but I think you already know my name. Or did you miss that while you were writing in your notebook.” He replied.
“I heard it.” I replied, “I was just writing because Mr. Lawrence always has us copy what is on the board before class actually starts, so I save some time and just do it when I walk in here.”
“Good idea,” he said. It looked like he would have said something else but then Mr. Lawrence said, “Okay I know we only have two weeks left of school but we still have finals, and a lot to cover before the year is over. So, get to work on copying what’s on the board and then we will cover what we are doing today and get our homework taken care of.”
I finished writing first since I was already halfway done and watched as Michael copied it into his notebook. He looked kinda cute the way he bit his lip as he concentrated on his writing.
After going over the days lesson Mr. Lawrence gave us our homework and told us we could work in partners, if we would so like. I usually worked alone but today Michael asked if I would like to work with him. I agreed and we were soon done.
During our free time Michael told me a bit about himself. He was a sophomore, had moved here from Illinois, was a vegetarian just like me, and had covered today’s lesson last week at his old school, which explained why he had kept up me so well. Usually I was ahead of the class by a couple minutes.
The bell rang and I found out Michael had an almost identical schedule to me, but hadn’t gotten here until last period, which is why I hadn’t seen him until now. As we walked down the hallway to first my locker and then his, I saw Brandon. I felt my eyes follow him as he stopped a couple yards away to talk to one of his friends.
“You like him.” I was surprised to hear Michael say. I turned to see him looking at Brandon also. I nodded; there was nothing to gain by denying it. “Well I can see why,” I looked at him oddly. “He’s totally hot.”
“What?”
“Oh, sorry…. I guess I didn’t tell you… I’m gay.”
“Okay then….”
“So go ask him out.” He said, looking at me.
I felt panicky. Ask him out? Yeah right I couldn’t even say hi to the guy, much less ask him out. “I can’t.” I said frantically.
“Why not?” He asked.
“Because I can’t even start a conversation with him, much less ask him out!” I said still frantic.
“Then he’ll never know you like him.” Michael said simply, “Next class is this way, right?”
I nodded and walked caught up to him as he started to walk. After the next class, Chemistry, I said goodbye to Michael and walked to my locker. I packed my backpack with the books I needed for the night and swung it over my shoulder.
I walked home, my previous conversation with Michael fresh in my mind. He was right; if I never talked to Brandon or asked him out he would never know I liked him.
I sighed and walked into my house. I spent the night studying and thinking about Brandon, always coming back to what Michael said. Finally I went to bed.
The next morning I woke up, got ready, yadda, yadda, yadda, and went to school. I met up with Michael at his locker and directed him to his homeroom. During my homeroom, in which I had just had to sit next to Brandon, thanks to a certain teacher who likes to torture me. I saw Brandon struggling with some homework.
I thought about Michael’s words and decided to finally talk to him. I looked over his shoulder and saw him working on math that I had done months ago. “Umm...” I said. He looked at me. “If you just take this number here and divide it like this and then multiply it by what’s in the parentheses, you get the answer,” I said writing it down on his paper.
He looked down at the paper and then at me and smiled. “Thanks.” He said, “What’s your name again?”
“Sophia, Sophia White.” I replied slowly.
“Oh well thanks a lot, can you help we this problem out too?” He asked.
I smiled, “Sure.”
I soon had helped him on all his math homework and felt confident enough to say, “Would you like to hang out sometime?”
He looked at me oddly then burst out laughing. My superior intellect told me it wasn’t a good thing. When he stopped he said, “You really think I would go out with a girl like you? As if! You aren’t even close to being pretty enough. Plus, I don’t like smart girls, unless I can get homework answers off them. And I have a girlfriend!”
I was crushed, my heart broken. I felt so hopeless and ignorant. How could I have thought he would see past my face and like me for my personality? A part of my brain was screaming at me, especially since he didn’t know me. I’m such an idiot.
I had the respect for myself not to burst out into tears but to nod and turn away. The bell rang and I raced out into the hallway, not looking behind me. I felt tears burst into my eyes as I came up to my locker. I saw Michael standing there and even though I had only known him a day I felt closer to him than anyone else in the school.
He saw that something was wrong and hugged me. I collapsed in his arms. After a minute I had regained some of my composer and opened my locker to get my books out. I grabbed the needed supplies and headed off to class.
The rest of the day was also pretty eventful. I finally was able to tell Michael what happened and when I got home I found out I had been accepted into a boarding school near Chicago that I had wanted into.
After that the end of the year came surprisingly quickly (except for those moments where I saw Brandon, those were painfully slow) since I had something to look forward to at the end of the year. Sigh.