9. Amalia
My hand wraps around the thermos of hot chocolate as I wait for everyone to filter into the classroom.
We have our first algebra test, and I’ve always liked arriving early. It gives me a few quiet minutes to run through anything I feel like I haven’t fully locked down.
My eyes are fixed on an equation when I feel his presence in the room.
Because you can’t not feel it. It’s like he applies some sort of formula to the atoms in the air.
Two girls walk in behind him and I hear them giggle the moment they spot Professor Vaughn at the podium.
Honestly, it’s a pretty normal reaction, given that this man could model for the math department.
He’d definitely draw in a certain demographic with the way he looks, all nerdy intensity wrapped in someone who clearly hits the gym five times a week, with that mysterious edge that promises nothing but trouble.
I almost laugh at the description my own brain just came up with and go back to scanning the results of the equation, when I catch a scent… Musk, mint, and something clean, like fresh laundry. It’s the kind of smell that feels like comfort. I like it.
“I expect all of that material to disappear from your desk in the next twenty seconds, Miss Sanchez.”
First, I don’t like his smell anymore.
Second, I look up at him with what I’m sure is mild irritation because the implication in his voice isn’t lost on me. I have never cheated in my life, and I’m not about to start on a subject I actually enjoy.
Too bad it’s taught by Voldemort.
I close my notebooks with slightly too much drama and stuff them into my backpack, eyes fixed on his face the whole time.
Something tightens in his jaw, and his gaze does this thing I can’t quite name. Annoyance? The desire to strangle me? The urge to fail me on principle?
Without looking away from me, he sets the exam sheet on my desk before moving on through the room, dropping a copy in front of each student. Murmurs break out behind me almost immediately, and from what I can piece together, we’ve all gotten different versions.
Good. Because if anyone behind me decides to take a peek, it won’t do them any favors, and that genuinely puts me at ease. The last thing I need is to get tangled up in someone else’s academic dishonesty in my first month of college.
Ok, Amalia! Vamos, use that beautiful brain of yours!
The questions are challenging for a first test, but I work through everything in under twenty minutes.
After a second pass to check my work, I nudge the pages aside and start drawing a flower on one of my scratch sheets. A daisy, probably.
Doesn’t look like a daisy, Amalia.
There are thirty minutes left, and I know if I walk up to submit my exam right now, every person in this room will stamp NERD on my forehead, and that’s something I’d rather put off as long as I can. My grades always end up doing the talking anyway.
I’m on my second flower when a shadow falls across my page.
I push my glasses up my nose as I look up and find Professor Vaughn staring at my scratch sheet with an odd expression.
“If you’re finished and bored, Miss Sanchez, I’d suggest turning in your exam rather than testing Frida Kahlo’s patience from beyond the grave with those sketches.”
My head instantly fills with about a thousand colorful words, and I physically bite the tip of my tongue to keep them all in.
How dare he make fun of my drawings? Isn’t there some law against professors bullying their students? Sure, they’re simple, and they were never meant to be art.
They’re just meant to keep me occupied for another fifteen minutes until it’s socially acceptable to turn this in.
But since I can’t say what I’m actually thinking, I put on the sweetest smile I own, slide him the exam, and whisper low enough that only he can hear, “Euclid and Cantor would be proud of the problems I just solved in one-fifth of the allotted time.”
Technically it took me two-fifths, but he doesn’t need to know that, and ay Diosito, I just challenged him. Indirectly, but still.
I close my eyes and swallow. What’s worse, I dragged two of my favorite mathematicians into it.
Se?or Euclid, Se?or Cantor, forgive me for the blasphemy. Honestly.
The corner of his mouth lifts, and with a glint in his eye, he whispers back, “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
No. No.
I nearly call after him to forget I said anything. What on earth is wrong with me, talking back to a professor who teaches a subject where I can’t afford anything less than a perfect score?
Does anyone know a formula for wiping someone’s memory?