Chapter 2
For a decade, Julius did his best to avoid being seated next to Sadie Wen.
He realized very early on that nothing was more detrimental to his studies.
Her closeness was too overpowering. He’d find himself staring in her direction more often than he stared at the board.
He became overly aware of his own body, his posture, and if he’d styled his hair well enough that morning and whether his blazer was wrinkled.
And her.
He was always instantly, pathetically aware of her in every room she entered, but it became unbearable when they were sitting side by side at the same table.
His own thoughts taunted and betrayed him; he shouldn’t be noticing how the freckles on her cheeks looked more prominent in the morning light, how she adjusted her bun whenever she had a headache, how she chewed the end of her pen when she was trying to solve an equation.
He shouldn’t be tensing whenever her shoulder accidentally brushed against his, or when she reached over his desk for a worksheet.
He shouldn’t be keeping track of how many times she faked a smile at the teacher or her classmates or nodded along when she was clearly uncomfortable, and how many times her face lit up with genuine excitement.
He shouldn’t be concerned that the latter happened far less frequently than the former, and he most definitely shouldn’t be wondering how to change that, as if her happiness had anything to do with him.
But that was back when he was still fighting against the idea of her, and no matter how strong his willpower, he can see in hindsight that he was destined to lose from the beginning.
Now he is grateful for every class where the teachers have allowed them to sit together. It makes even the dullest subjects interesting—and today, it also makes the wait for their results that much shorter.
The second Mr. Kaye sets Sadie’s math paper down before her, he glances over, faster than Sadie can hide her score.
97 percent.
“Not bad,” he tells Sadie, impressed despite himself. Their final math test was undoubtedly the hardest one they’ve taken all year, and he heard that the year level’s average was only 63 percent.
“Don’t say anything until you get your score,” Sadie warns him, but there’s a small smile on her lips, the anticipation of victory.
He meets her gaze as steadily as he can, though he feels his pulse picking up.
He knows for certain he’s lost at least one mark—it was that cursed challenge question at the end, which he recalculated as soon as he got home after the test. A disgusting blunder.
But as long as he didn’t miss anything else, there’s still a chance he could beat her.
He has to beat her. He already has the perfect US trip planned out for her—
“Well done, Julius,” Mr. Kaye says, sliding his paper over.
He flips it to the first page right away, blood pounding in his eardrums as he finds the score, almost afraid to see it …
96 percent.
“No,” he whispers, a physical reaction more than a verbal one. Automatic.
“Yes,” comes Sadie’s delighted response. “Oh my god, this is great—you have to honor the bet, okay?”
“Wait,” he says, shaking his head. He goes through all the questions he lost a mark on: three in total. He refuses to believe it. There must be something he can do, something to salvage this—
“It was a close match,” Sadie says happily, and she’s so exuberant, so pleased with herself, that he almost drops the matter.
He would drop anything just to keep her smiling like that.
“It’s okay if you need some time to accept your defeat.
While you do that, I’m going to finish outlining the itinerary. ”
But then he finds it. The third question. The teacher didn’t give him any marks for it, yet he’s sure his answer is right. “Can I see what you wrote for this one?” he asks Sadie.
“Sure,” she says, sliding her paper toward him. “If you need me to explain it—”
“We literally wrote the same answer, look,” he says, pointing down at the number like it’s a groundbreaking scientific discovery. “How did you get marks if I didn’t?”
Sadie studies the two tests for a minute. “Because you didn’t show your working out.”
“Because I didn’t need to show my working out,” he says, and can’t help adding a little smugly, “I did it in my head.”
Sadie offers him an indulgent sort of smile. “Good job.”
“The teacher clearly doesn’t think so.”
“Well, the teacher needs to see all the steps—”
“Those extra steps were unnecessary,” he insists. “It would have taken more effort to write it all down than to simply solve it—”
“But it’s about the process—”
“Does it really matter what the process is if I got the result?”
“See—morally, philosophically—you understand how that kind of thinking would be a problem, right?”
Julius rolls his eyes. “But this isn’t philosophy class. It’s math—”
“Is there a problem here?” Mr. Kaye asks, circling around to their desk again. Julius thought he and Sadie were discussing their tests in quiet, reasonable tones, but only now does he realize the whole class has stopped what they’re doing to watch them.
He forces his voice back down into a normal volume and offers the teacher his best smile. “I wouldn’t say there’s a problem, Mr. Kaye. But I am somewhat confused about the grading of this question—you see, I had written the right answer, but I wasn’t awarded any marks for it.”
“You have the answer, yes, but I wasn’t able to see how you had reached it,” Mr. Kaye explains, lowering himself to peer over at the paper in that awkward semi-squatting position teachers do, like he doesn’t want to commit to lingering any longer than needed.
“Sadie’s working out is a perfect example of what I was looking for.
It’s neat, it’s logical, and you can follow exactly how she went from step A to step B. ”
“See,” Sadie whispers into his ear, not even concealing her glee.
“But people might approach the problem differently,” Julius presses. “I saw the question, and my mind provided me with the answer right away. I don’t know how I’m expected to convey that.”
“You’re saying … the number just sprang into your head,” Mr. Kaye says.
“When you do enough practice questions, it’s entirely possible,” Julius says. “And I thought the school wanted to encourage us to learn using the method that best suits us. This is the method that best suits me.”
Mr. Kaye hesitates.
Julius seizes the beat of silence. “Even if you can’t award me the full marks, Mr. Kaye, surely I don’t deserve zero marks for getting the correct answer?”
“I suppose your answer was correct,” Mr. Kaye allows, and maybe it’s because he can sense that Julius is both willing and able to debate this point until lunchtime and is simply too tired for this, or because Julius has accrued enough credit after completing his challenge questions every week since the start of school, but he picks up Julius’s paper.
Considers it for a moment longer, then adds one mark next to the question.
Sadie makes an indignant sound. “What? That’s—”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Kaye,” Julius calls after the teacher as he returns to his desk. Now it’s his turn to grin at Sadie. “According to the calculations I just did in my head, that brings my overall percentage up to ninety-seven, which makes it a tie.”
“You can’t be serious,” Sadie grumbles, prodding him in the ribs with her pen, but gently. “You negotiated your way to victory.”
“As many brilliant strategists have done,” Julius says. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fair.”
“Yeah, right. Since when did you ever play fair?”
“Since now,” he says sweetly. “How about I plan out the first half of the trip, and you plan out the second? That gives us a whole week of activities each. But if I’m taking the first half, I do think it makes sense for me to decide on the accommodation.”
“I’m just concerned you’re going to book us a deluxe suite in that horribly overpriced five-star hotel,” Sadie says.
“Rest assured that if I were to book a deluxe suite, I’d book the honeymoon suite for us,” he tells her. “But you’ll see.”
Sadie prods him one final time, but Julius just laughs, catches the pen in his fingers, and tugs her toward him until she’s only a couple of inches away.
She stares up at him, annoyance warring with affection on her face and ultimately losing, color spreading fast through her cheeks.
God, he loves sitting next to her. Can’t believe he’s wasted all this time resisting, trying to run away, when she’s the only one he’s ever wanted to run toward.
“I hate you,” she grumbles without conviction, her voice soft enough to be a sigh.
He tugs her closer still, taking his time to take her in, his smile widening slowly. “I know you don’t,” he says.
And she doesn’t disagree.