That’s what it feels like when I sit down for my trigonometry midterm only a few hours after I finally drifted off to sleep.
I don’t know the answer to the first question. Whatever. It’s just one.
I don’t feel good about the second one, either, but missingtwoquestions never killed anyone.
I’m almost positive that the third question came directly from my study packet, but when I close my eyes and try to see the answer, all I see are West’s ink-stained fingers playing with a loose strand of my hair.
After we left the library last night, he walked me to my dorm, where we made out against a column for an unknowable amount of time. Twenty minutes? An hour? All I know is that I was dizzy when I finally stumbled into my bed, drunk on the feeling of West’s lips on my skin and his weight pressed against me.
And now I can’t concentrate on cosines, because how am I supposed to care what a cosine is when my lips are still swollen and sore from the best night of my life? I press my fingers to my puffy mouth and stifle a yawn; I was up until four a.m. because my hyperactive imagination refused to settle down. I tend to brainstorm in bed, but in the early hours of this morning, I was weaving daydreams about someone real.
Numbers shuffle around on the page. I check the clock—time is moving at warp speed—and set my pencil down. I lean forward until my head hits the desk. I’ve entered the free-fall portion of the test. I stop flailing and admit to myself that there’s no saving this one. I tuck in my arms and legs and hold my breath, praying the ground is soft upon landing.
The bell rings. I turn in my exam and walk numbly through the halls of the math building with new eyes, and it’s even worse than I remember. I can’t believe I’ll have to spend another semester looking at these cold white walls and the backs of frat boys’ heads instead of sitting cross-legged in a Socratic seminar with the rest of the humanities majors. I want a TA to writeImpressivein blue ink at the top of a short story I wrote the night before class. I want to laugh under my breath with West when a classmate’s purple prose gets out of control.
I blink dark spots out of my eyes as I step into the sun.
“Mars!” West’s voice zaps my heart like a defibrillator. If the test nearly killed me, he’s reviving my will to go on. (Too cheesy. I’d delete that line in revisions.) West jogs toward me, a coffee inhis hand. “You did it!” He wraps his free arm around me and pulls me in for a hug that leaves me speechless. Half of me wants to relax into him; the other half still can’t believe what just happened.
He offers me the drink. “I don’t know how you like your coffee, so I took a shot in the dark.”
I don’t like any kind of coffee, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I take a sip. As expected, it tastes like burned tar. I make a face, and West grimaces. “Not good?” He runs a hand through his hair, which is still wet from the shower and starting to curl. If I were in a better mood, I’d write a poem about those curls.
“It’s, um, I’m surprised that you’re here.”
His expression falters. “Oh, well, I was up anyway. I thought you’d be in the mood to celebrate.”
I take another asphalt-flavored sip. “There’s nothing to celebrate, because I failed worse than anyone else has ever failed a one hundred–level math exam. It’s shocking how badly I did.”
“How do you know?”
“I left half the test blank.”
“It’ll be okay,” West says in the self-assured voice of someone who has no actual skin in the game. “If you get A’s the rest of the semester, you can pull your grade up.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“I can help you study.”
I snort. “That sounds familiar.”
His gaze dips to his shoes, and I swear I see pink at the tips of his ears. “For real next time. I won’t let myself get distracted by your lips, or your cute snort-laugh, or the freckles you have right here…” His eyes find mine again and he traces my cheekbone with his thumb.
My eyes well with ridiculous, unstoppable tears. “West!” I taste salt water on my lips.
His eyes widen in panic. “No! Hey, hey, hey,” he says, and I commend the effort, but it doesn’t help. When people notice I’m crying, I only cry harder.
I press my fingers to the corners of my eyes. “I have medically diagnosed overactive tear ducts.”
He jerks his head back in surprise. “Really?”
“Who’s gullible now?” I ask, but he doesn’t laugh. “I cry a lot. I can’t help it.”
He wraps me in a hug while I take several shuddering breaths. “I’m sorry you had a bad morning,” he says at last.
“Thanks,” I mumble into his tear-soaked shirtsleeve. It occurs to me that it’s slightly embarrassing to be crying all over the guy I just kissed for the first time last night, but I’m too sad about my midterm to care.
He pulls back, and I can tell by the way he slouches and hesitates that his burst of confidence is retreating. “So,” he says.
