Page 49
“You’re getting all panicked.”
“I’m not getting panicked.”
He glances at my death grip on the pencil. I look down.
“Fine. Maybe a little,” I admit, loosening my fingers. “I just don’t want to waste your time.”
“You’re not.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I know.” He taps the worksheet with the end of his pencil. “That’s why you should believe me.”
He frowns, like the conversation has become irritatingly emotional by accident.
“I don’t say shit I don’t mean,” he says. “And you’re not giving up because one question’s being a pain in the ass. Start again.”
I sigh and try again. But the longer we sit here, the more the numbers seem to rearrange themselves just to spite me. My brain feels thick and tired, like it has hit its limit. The page starts to blur at the edges, and that familiar, awful frustration rises in my throat.
It’s ridiculous. I know it’s ridiculous. This is just a worksheet. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not proof that I’m stupid or useless or too old to be starting over.
But it feels like proof.
“I can’t do any more,” I say, pushing the worksheet away before I completely fall apart. “I’m sorry. I got one question right the other day. That was clearly my peak.”
Levi watches me for a second. “Why you doing all this anyway?”
“To prove to myself I’m not stupid,” I admit. The words hang there, heavy with the obvious implication—that I clearly am.
“Yeah, well…” He shrugs one shoulder. “You suck this bad at everything else? Your other subjects?”
“No.”
He gives another small shrug, like that settles the entire argument. It’s barely a compliment, but coming from him, it feels like one.
I look at him. He doesn’t soften things or pat my hand or tell me every idea is wonderful just because he thinks that’s what I want to hear. If something is stupid, I have no doubt he’d tell me straight—probably without even blinking.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
His eyes flick to mine. Nerves flutter in my stomach, but I push on anyway.
“When I finish my GED—if I finish—I want to open a dog shelter.”
I watch his face, bracing for the familiar reaction: the slight frown, the amused exhale, the gentle but logical explanation of why it’s impractical. Why it would never work.
But Levi only tilts his head. “What’s the question?”
My throat feels tight. The words come out small and shaky. “Do you think I could do that?”
He glances over at Fifi, curled up on the rug, then back to me. “Looks like you’ve already started. That’s one. What’s a few more?”
My shoulders lower a fraction.
“And you won’t need a GED for that,” he adds. “Pretty sure dogs won’t be checking whether you can do equations before they let you save them.”
I stare at him.
It’s ridiculous, I know it is, but he says it so easily. Not like I’m being silly. Not like I’m too old or too late or reaching for something I have no right to want.
