let’s talk math

let’s talk math.

I said to him, sipping on my cup of soda. I preferred sprite to coca cola, and fanta to dr. pepper, and pepsi is my current favorite drink. Which doesn’t really make sense, according to him.

But my affinities and propensities were never governed by the rules of logic, because I was never an extremely logical person to begin with. I admired people with robust systems of doing things, and I wished I were the type of person with color coded binders and stick straight bony writing, that remained even and precise, even on top of printer paper and blackboards without lines.

But I like to draw outside the lines and dance on the edge of the breakdown.

Despite my lack of neat handwriting and swaths of looseleaf paper falling out of ripped folders and dilapidated binders, I still got good grades.

To each her own.

Which brings us back to math.

Stop drinking soda. It’s bad for you.

He knocked the soda can out of my hand. It hit the floor with a clank and a clunk, and I watched as it rolled away from us on the dullish pastel colored floor.

Look who’s talking. Who else in this grade drinks coca cola straight out of the 1-liter bottle you call home for your mouth? Which doesn’t even make sense.

He ignored me and continued drawing hyperbolas on his piece of graph paper.

Ignoring offenses was one of my favorite past times too. Not that I’m offended by him or by his brutish act that was unsolicited (was it unsolicited? Yes. It was), as he’s more likely to be offended by something I did than the other way around.

We’ve been over this. He said, looking down his nose at me.

(Did I mention how much I liked the sight of his nose from below?)

It’s 5.

Wrinkling my own nose, I scoffed and chew at my granola bar. Granola bars give me more energy than overly sugary Gatorade electrolyte-rich drinks.

He tried to convince me otherwise many times.

Projecting ever so loudly in the blowhorn voice he uses when he wants to aspire hundreds of his cult followers to do his bidding, he tried to inspire me to drink Gatorade to fuel my “failing tennis career”, as he aptly put it.

I refused.

He waited a couple of months before pouring Gatorade on me while I was tanning on that nice salon chair in his backyard that spring break we started having sex. Maybe it was hormones, maybe it was spite, but I retaliated by pouring his entire stock of Gatorade into his parents’ house’s backyard pool.

Oops,

I sweetly said as I poured bottle after bottle of his precious drink into the water.

My parents are going to KILL you,

He said with a shocked expression on his face.

Did I mention that he was half naked at the time with two bikini-clad girls who could double up as Teen Vogue models sitting in his lap?

That just added to my ire.

But anyway, back to the present.

I pull out a baggy of green grapes and start chewing on one. I need the fuel, and fruits actually give you a ton of energy.

Want one?

I lifted the baggy.

He lifted his cool green eyes and stared at the grapes.

He shook his head and went back to his calculus homework.

Not now.

I couldn’t help but stare at his profile. His classic Grecian nose was kind of my favorite nose at the moment. And I’ve been exposed to a lot of different types of noses (I like to look at and draw people).

Also did I even mention how good looking he was?

He was the best looking guy in school, from his strawberry blonde hair to his body that reminded me of a young Greek god, and I’ve had the pleasure of calling him my best friend and partner-in-crime since we were six years old and counting.

I’ve also had the longest unrequited crush on him since forever, partly because he was so good looking and everyone knows you can’t help attraction.

Can you?

I knew he didn’t have feelings for me the same way I did for him, that I was kind of just a friends with benefits to him. Not only had he slept with half of the girls in our grade (and then some), not only was he a major player (not just baseball, basketball, hockey, volleyball, and, his least favorite sport, tennis, but actually a player of girls), not only was he super smart and good with numbers and student body president for the majority of our formal education, not only did he possess supreme leadership skills that enabled him to develop a cult following in our school, not only was he voted best looking, most likely to succeed in life by our year, not only does he flit from girl to girl with the attention span of a squirrel, not only is he more committed to his Olympic dream of being a medalist swimmer than to girls, not only that…

But also, I don’t have the guts to try to make him fall for me.

Not yet anyway.

Snapping me out of my inner monologue, he echoed me,

Let’s talk math.

I pulled out my mathlete book. We’re both in math team, our high school’s most coveted academic team. He’s captain of A team, but I carry the team.

We’re going to nationals soon and I knew that this was going to be a game changer. I printed out swaths of math team problems and put them in a neat binder for reference. The best way to tackle math problems is by learning the patterns.

He disagrees. He insists it’s all about logic and each problem is its unique little unicorn.

I’m more intuitive than logical, so I do math my own way.

Using a ton of intuition.

That’s why I’m better than you at math.

He smirked.

I use logic. Unlike you, who’s probably the least logical stuffed animal I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Just because I wore a bunny onesie to school one day doesn’t make me a stuffed animal.

Actually it kind of does.

I don’t really feel like discussing with him math right now. Right now I have an itch I need to scratch, but we’re in school and there’s no where decent enough for us to do what we’ve always done --- for about half a year now.

So I do the next best thing.

Standing up and stretching, I open my locker and pull out my tennis racket.

I’m going to the courts. See you later.

He nods.

He is so hard to read sometimes.

Shrugging, I bounce my tennis ball against the floor and head towards the tennis courts.

Time to work on my serve.

-

Tennis is all about strategy.

I knew my weak point was my stamina, so I spent most of my time working on my serve. Having a fast serve is the key to putting pressure on your opponent. The faster the serve, the harder for your opponent to return it, and the quickest way to victory.

My serve is about 130 mph. It’s pretty fast for high school level tennis.

I’m trying to hack it so that it elevates to at least 150mph.

Because I have bigger dreams than beating out the other varsity teams.

I’m trying to make US Open finals. Juniors level. I qualified as I am pretty highly ranked in tournaments. Coach speaks well of me because not only am I captain and have been for a good year and a half, but also because I’m her best asset.

They called me lightning on court.

Partly because of my fast serve, partly because I sprint on my toes to keep my balance and game up.

I’m the fastest player on my team, but my endurance is weak.

That’s why I need a Celsius energy to drink to carry me through my play.

Unzipping my backpack, I take out a can of Celsius, which I’ve hidden from my best friend because he would have taken it without a bat of an eye. He’s such a taker of things, souls, and bodies. Not bothering to check if anyone was around, because I was all alone on the tennis court at 6am in the morning, I chug it like a champion.

Great stuff.

My favorite flavor is white peach. It’s just my vibe. On court and off court.

Let’s go.

Ready to serve, I pound my ball against the clay and throw it up. Positioning myself, I swing my dominant hand and the racket makes contact.

One.

The ball smashes into the other side of the court.

I take another ball and do the exact same thing.

Two.

It’s even faster this time.

And now.

Three.

Nothing like a good serve to keep me on my toes.

Blood rushing in my ears, I head to the walls to play solo.

I play solo against the wall to up my volley game.

No, not volleyball.

That’s more his alley.

He’s the best volley ball player on his team. He’s the team’s lead striker, which is why I like to call him Steelstriker every time he’s on the volleyball court.

Go go steel!

I screamed from the bleachers during his last game.

Without a glance at me, he jumped and smashed the volleyball into the opposing court.

Match.

At the end of his game, he turned his steely eyes at me and said without smiling,

Thanks for the support.

I knocked his fist and that’s when I knew we were good.

Deuce.