My best friend, Maya, nudged me with her elbow, not looking up from her sketchbook where she was angrily shading a dragon’s wing.“You’re doing it again. The pathetic puppy-dog stare. Just go talk to her.”
“It’s not that simple,” I muttered, pushing my glasses up my nose.“It’s a complex social algorithm. I’m a variable she hasn’t factored in yet.”
Maya snorted.“You’re a nerd, Leo. A hot nerd, but still a nerd. And she’s dating Jake Miller. It’s not an algorithm, it’s a tragedy.”
As if on cue, Jake Miller, our resident golden boy and starting quarterback, slung an arm around Chloe, pulling her close. He was everything I wasn’t—broad-shouldered, charismatic, his confidence as solid as the varsity jacket he always wore. They looked like they’d stepped out of a teen movie.
My chance to break the algorithm came unexpectedly in Calculus, the one class I shared with Chloe. Mr. Davison assigned a partnered final project. As he read out the pairs, I held my breath.
“Chloe Evans and Leo Madsen.”
My heart stopped. Chloe turned in her seat, offering me a small, polite smile. Jake, who was in the class too, shot me a look that was somewhere between a warning and an amused smirk.
After class, she approached my desk.“So, partners. My house after school tomorrow? I’m drowning in derivatives.”
“Sure,” I said, my voice an octave higher than usual.“I can… I can help with the drowning.”
It was the most thrilling and terrifying sentence I had ever uttered.
The next day, I walked into Chloe’s pristine, sun-drenched house feeling like an imposter. We spread our textbooks on her kitchen island. For the first hour, it was strictly business. I explained the chain rule; she listened with a focused intensity that was even more attractive than her laugh.
During a break, she gestured to the novel sticking out of my backpack.“You read Salinger?”
“It’s for English,” I said, then added, stupidly,“I like his use of unreliable narrators.”
She tilted her head, her gaze curious.“Jake thinks reading fiction is a waste of time. He says if it’s not a playbook or a stock report, it’s not real.”
There it was. A crack in the perfect facade.
“Well,” I said, finding a sliver of courage,“Jake’s wrong.”
A real smile, not the polite one from class, broke across her face.“Yeah. I think he might be.”
We started talking. Not about math, but about books, about the pressure of being student council president, about how she secretly wanted to be a photographer, not a business major like her parents wanted. I saw a different Chloe—not the sun-queen from the cafeteria, but a girl who felt just as trapped as I sometimes did.
When I left, my head was spinning. I went straight to Maya’s garage, which she’d converted into an art studio. The air smelled of turpentine and spray paint.
“How was the study session?” she asked, her back to me as she worked on a large, abstract canvas full of dark, swirling colors.
“It was… good. Really good. We talked. Actually talked.”
Maya’s paintbrush stilled.“Oh.” She finally turned around, and her expression was unreadable. There was a smudge of blue paint on her cheek.“So, the algorithm worked.”
“I don’t know,” I said, my mind still replaying every word Chloe had said.“Maybe.”
I was so focused on the crack of light Chloe had shown me that I completely missed the shadow that crossed Maya’s face. I was so busy calculating my chances with the sun that I didn't notice the moon, steady and constant right beside me, beginning to wane. The triangle wasn't just forming; its points were already drawing blood, and I was too starstruck to feel the cut.
Chapter 2:
The Moon and the Sun
The calculus project became a ritual. Twice a week, I’d go to Chloe’s, and we’d spend an hour on math and two hours talking. We were building a world in her kitchen, a secret territory that existed outside the cafeteria’s social map. I learned she hated the taste of coffee but drank it to seem older. She learned I had a vast, embarrassing knowledge of 80s synth-pop because it was all my dad played in his car.
One afternoon, she was showing me her photography portfolio on her laptop—stunning, black-and-white candid shots of people in the park, of rain on her windowpane. They were filled with a quiet, lonely beauty I never knew she saw.
“These are incredible, Chloe.”
She blushed, closing the laptop.“They’re just… for me. My dad calls it a‘nice hobby.’” She sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.“Sometimes I feel like I’m just playing a part. The perfect daughter, the perfect girlfriend…”
