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A contradictory impulse stirred in my stomach like bile. I didn’t want to know what the label was—I definitely, definitely didn’t want to know—but Ihadto know. I couldn’t think of anything else. “For what? Most Likely To: Do Something With Her Life?”
Alex passed his phone over to me, which was warm from how firmly he’d been gripping it. A slew of names on a poorly designed PDF greeted me, and I had to blink a few times to understand what the awkward font was trying to say.
The label was a new one, because if it’d been created any years in the past, I definitely would’ve been named it. Every single time.
Most Likely To: Marry A Math Book.
Maisie Matthews
“Am I supposed to be offended?” I demanded, frowning at the screen. My heart was running at a strange beat in my chest, like a bird had been trapped in my ribcage. “Is that supposed to hurt my feelings? What kind of label is that, anyway? You can’t marry an inanimate object.”
Despite the firmness in my voice, I felt my cheeks burn.
It was the dumbest thing ever. The whole list was the dumbest thing ever. I mean, come on.End up alone?Never get a girlfriend? How was any of that funny?
Like Alex had said, populars never made the Most Likely To list, which was super convenient thattheywere never made fun of. It proved that they had to be the ones who made the whole thing up.
I lifted my gaze, finding the table the Top Tier claimed. They were the only ones whoweren’tlooking at their phones, but rather sitting back and watching the insanity spread. I found Madison among the group, her pink lips turned up as she glanced around the cafeteria. She faltered when she spotted me, some of the amusement seeping from her features.
It was funny how high school changed people. I never would’ve guessed that the girl I grew up with, the girl I considered a sister, would turn out this way. Because out of all the possible suspects who might’ve come up with the stupid label, she was at the top.
I swiped up my worksheet and pencil and stuffed it into my purple satchel, where my calculus book greeted me spine-first.Marry a math book.
“Oh my gosh, did you see who got chosen for Never Get a Girlfriend?” Rachel asked, leaning toward Ava and tilting her phone screen, even though they were peering at the same ridiculous PDF. “That’s so sad—he’s sweet!”
“But he’s never dated,” Alex joined in, swiping through. “Ooh, they’ve added a few more new ones this year. Look at this one—Most Likely To: Stay A Prude?”
“I’ll see you guys later,” I got out, but none of them noticed me gather my things. Which was fine by me, because I was sure the annoyance was clear on my face like a swipe of bright paint. Annoyance at them for being so interested in this shallow nonsense, annoyance with myself for even asking about the list in the first place.
Marry a math book. I cracked my knuckles as I stormed away from my table, passing head after head bowed into their cell screen. Was that seriously the best they could do?
Sometimes it felt like after freshman year, I turned into a totally new person. There was a version of me who’d lived from birth until the beginning of high school, thriving with a carefree attitude and a happy life filled with sleepovers and bike rides. Then there was a version of me who lived now—quiet, reserved, focused.
It was times like this, though, with the whispers and stares surrounding me like fog, that had me reliving freshman year all over again.
Since lunch, The Most Likely To list was all anyone talked about for the rest of the school day. Mondays were annoying on their own, but to hear every lame label parroted around during the remaining five classes nearly drove me insane.
So did the whispers.
“Did you see they made a new label for her?”
“Can you blame them?Marry a math book.”
Someone laughed. “Yeah, it’s so clever.”
Ha, ha, ha. Yeah.Superclever.
I stared at the back of Mrs. Diego’s head as she went over the homework for the night, trying to focus on her soothing voice and block out the peanut gallery behind me.
“I want you to do problems 1 through 21 tonight,” Mrs. Diego said, scrawling the numbers on the board with her red dry-erase pen. “Odds only. Yes, yes, I know. Keep groaning. I know when I give you only even problems, you all go to the back of the book for the answers. Showing your work is required.”
In the grand scheme of things, eleven problems weren’t hard, especially since we were in the intro phases of calculus. If the class was groaning now, they were in for a treat for the rest of the year. I already had the homework finished. Mrs. Diego had given me the syllabus for the month last week, and I worked through it over the weekend.
“The bell’s about to ring, so no in-class time today,” Mrs. Diego went on, capping her marker and turning around. For a math teacher, a married one at that, she was relatively young. Early thirties. Not a single gray hair in her brown braid, and she was an expert at makeup. “You can have the last few minutes for free time.”
Free time. Like the room was filled with a bunch of kindergarteners rather than seniors.
I brought my neon orange satchel onto my desk and took out my math binder. Earlier in the summer, Rachel had taught me calligraphy—more like attempted to teach me—and I had writtenCalculusonto this one. Lopsided and frumpy, but still legible. Still a win. With it in tow, I started toward Mrs. Diego’s desk.
