Solving for Ex

by LeighAnn Kopans

  “She cheated. She’s a goddamn cheat, you guys!”

  Brendan shook his head, slowly. “But in our paper tests, she totally killed it. She was fast.”

  “Yeah, you know why?” I asked, seriously trying to keep my spit in check. “She either memorized the answers, or had Vincent reading them to her in her damn headset.”

  Now I felt ballsy. I reached my hand back into Sofia’s ridiculously voluminous hair, which I now realized would be the perfect way to hide even the bulkiest cell phone headset, unhooked her stupid pink one from behind her ear, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it.

  She glared at me, fire burning in her eyes “What do you think you’re doing, you bitch?”

  The right thing. For the first time, I was doing the right thing.

  “Showing everyone what a lying, cheating bitch you are.”

  “I can’t believe you would even say that. B. Do you hear how she’s talking to me? There’s no way I would ever do that. Do you think I would ever do that to you?” She was downright simpering now.

  “Yeah, okay. Keep trying to tell us that with no way to prove it.”

  “I would watch my mouth if I were you, Ashley Price. Burn through your popularity here and you have nowhere else to go, do you?”

  She definitely knew how to throw a punch straight to my gut. I instinctively looked to Vincent, standing against the wall, and he held his hands up, palms out. I’d never know what it was that he had ever liked about me, but it sure as hell wasn’t strong enough to make him defend me against his sister when the time came.

  I looked over at Brendan, whose face was screwed up in a look that could only be confused-slash-embarrassed. I rolled my eyes. Great. I was really all on my own here.

  Except the other five kids on the team were all watching me. Including Britt, who’d been Sofia’s closest friend since she’d arrived at Mansfield.

  I blew out a breath, and looked between Sofia and Brendan, who was watching me now, too. Sofia shook her head back and forth, slowly, and glared at me. I stood up a little straighter and squared my shoulders.

  “You bitch,” Sofia said, so softly I wasn’t sure anyone but me could hear it. But Brendan did. He looked up and moved his gaze from me to her and then back again.

  “She hacked the system. Got the answers to the writtens and memorized them. She and Vincent had a plan. He was planning to watch the live feed and feed her the answers to those, too, through that earpiece.”

  The silence then was ridiculous. Brendan stared at Sofia. She threw her hands in the air and cried, “Look, Brendan, you believe what you want, okay? It’s your reputation on the line. I just promise you that if I go out on that stage today, we will win.”

  I was actually a little impressed that she didn’t lie. Bitch could bring herself to cheat almost shamelessly, but not to full-on lie to Brendan. He must have heard her confirmation that she was a cheat.

  He stared at his feet as he said, “I think you should stay back, Sofia. Until we clear this up.”

  Brendan looked at me one more time. “Ashley, I don’t know what to say.” And then he was quiet again.

  “Well, you have to say something.” The growl was back, but dammit, I couldn’t exorcise it now. I was on a roll. I couldn’t have stopped the words if I’d tried, now. “You have to say something, for once. For once in your freaking life, Brendan, you have to look at what’s staring you in the face and either do something about it or walk away.”

  His eyes snapped to mine, then to Sofia.

  “Sofia,” he said in a low voice that I could swear had picked up some of my rumbling, “Add any integer N to the square of 2N to produce integer M. For how many values of N is M prime?”

  “I…”

  “None, two, or an infinite number?”

  Sofia stood there, her mouth hanging open.

  “You don’t even know how you’d start to solve the problem, do you? Do you? Should I try another one? Just to be sure?” Brendan was yelling now.

  “What does a graph of x plus y squared equals x squared plus y squared look like?”

  Sofia looked up at him, wide-eyed.

  “Please tell me you didn’t actually hack the system for the writtens, Sofia,” Brendan asked, clearly trying to control his volume.

  Like a switch had been flipped, Sofia stood up straight and stared Brendan right in the eyes. “Everyone cheats. We are trying to get into really good schools. Everyone has awesome grades. Everyone needs to find a way to get a little something extra, you know?”

  “So you get that,” Brendan said, “by studying, joining Mathletes, and competing. Not by stealing the fucking test answers!” His face turned red, and I swore I could see his body trembling even so many yards away.

  Vincent cleared his throat, breaking the deafening silence. “Before you embarrass her any more, I had an equal part in this, okay? Yeah, I’m pretty good at hacking computer systems, and ironically, Mathletics State doesn’t have the craziest barriers on theirs. This is what we do, man. Steal answer keys, get straight As that make for perfect transcripts, get some dumbass State Mathletes and drama club creds on the college applications…”

  “Get expelled, let your dad clean up the mess you made by bribing the principal, move schools, do it all over again. I know. My dad told me. He doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong with it either.” Brendan’s gaze was cold and focused on Sofia instead of Vincent. “I knew about the tests—English, History. But Mathletes? I didn’t think even Sofia was capable of royally screwing someone over on such a personal level. Someone she was supposed to like.”

  Vincent shrugged. “We might as well.” Then he turned and stared at me. “It’s not like we have anything here to lose.”

  There was a small squeak from where Britt leaned against the wall a couple feet away from Vincent. She mumbled something about the ladies’ room and hurried out.

  Brendan stared at his shoes again and swallowed hard. “Well, everyone, pack up your stuff. I’ll tell the officials the situation. We’re forfeiting.”

  “Brendan, no,” I whispered.

  “Obviously I’ve been the most idiotic team captain in the history of the Mansfield Mathletes. Obviously I’ve had my mind on too many other things,” he closed his eyes and grimaced, “to see what was really going on here.”

  He was being so careful not to say her name. It must have sucked to have been the goddamn-lucky boyfriend to the perfect girl who was now not so perfect.

  And I didn’t give a shit. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. At this point, with my bitch face in full force, and my bitch voice already engaged, he was probably doing a much more mature job of it. A job that definitely would not involve grabbing Sofia’s hair and screaming and probably getting into a fistfight and tearing down the backdrop curtains on the Mathletes stage.

  “And Ashley’s the only one who’s been able to take her head out of her own ass for long enough to pay any attention.”

  Brendan raised his eyes to me, and they were so huge and blue and sad that all I wanted to do was stand up, throw myself into his arms, and forget the competition, and this classroom behind the stage, and all the other members of our team existed. My chest felt like it was on fire.

  “Brendan.” Sofia stood up and brushed her hand at Brendan’s shoulder. For such a gentle gesture, it looked forceful. Brendan’s shoulders tensed. “We’ve come this far. We might as well keep competing. Probably no one will even find out, it’ll be…”

  “The most inappropriate thing we could possibly do?” Brendan finished. He turned his gaze on Sofia, but now it was intense, and not in a good way. If I knew Brendan, he was fighting to keep himself from letting out a stream of curse words in front of the rest of the team.

  He was daring her to keep talking. But that stupid bitch wouldn’t give up. “I mean, it’s not like we didn’t prepare at all. And we’re good at the problems. We can figure out how to work them. We’ve just…prepared a little differently than everyone else. That�
��s all.”

  Her damn eyelashes batted a mile a minute, but Sofia was so used to not paying attention to Brendan, not caring one bit about his mannerisms, the way he stood and held himself and breathed when he was upset versus when he was still trying to decide whether to forgive someone.

  He was definitely past forgiveness now.

  Brendan’s chest rose as he took a deep breath. When he finally spoke, his voice came out low and gravelly. “Get out.” He had been looking down at his shoes, but when Sofia didn’t make any effort to leave, he raised his eyes to hers. She stood there, staring at him, mouth hanging open. He raised his arm and pointed to the door. “Get. Out.” His voice was ever so slightly louder now, but with an edge to it that I had never even heard before.

  There was “I can’t believe the Pirates lost” anger and then there was this anger. The kind that came from shame, and disappointment, and embarrassment all at once.

  Impossibly, Sofia’s bottom lip trembled. She shuddered out a heavy sigh, then bent to pick up her backpack. Sofia glanced at Britt, and Britt glared at her, steely-eyed, and shook her head. Sofia’s feet echoed across the thin classroom carpet as she stomped out of the room, tugging Vincent by the wrist behind her.

  Britt’s strangled voice punctured the silence. “Guess you couldn’t have waited until after we won to spring this little surprise on us, huh, Ashley?”

  Every head in the room turned to me.

  Suddenly, triumph at Brendan’s trust in me and having done the right thing all washed away with the panic of realization—it was happening all over again.

  I had ruined our chances for winning. This was even worse than the last time. Instead of being the subject of an untrue rumor, I was at the actual center of the downfall of the entire Mathletes team, and the seniors’ last chances at winning State.

  I fought back tears with everything in me. Brendan didn’t say anything else. I stood there waiting for him to do something while wondering what I really expected from him in the first place.

  Sofia didn’t need to make my life miserable at Mansfield Prep. I’d done that all on my own.

  In one fluid motion, I grabbed my bags and got the hell out of there.

  cold-hearted ambition

  I had to be alone. Really, really alone. After she’d driven all the way out to get me and all the way home in silence, Aunt Kristin would want to know what was wrong. Uncle Bruce would just try to make jokes with me. I needed space. To breathe, and to be. And I needed Brendan.

  As always, the one thing I couldn’t have.

  The only completely empty, close by, covered place was Brendan’s porch. I dashed over from ours, and in the eight seconds it took me to reach it, a layer of rain clung to my shirt and hair.

  I couldn’t get the image of him out of my mind. Shaking his head back and forth, staring at me, staring at Sofia. At least he didn’t defend her. That was something.

  Sheets of rain sliced through the air, and rivers of it bubbled and ran through the street. The steady hiss of the downpour matched my mood, at least. I leaned my elbows on the porch rail and glared at the white froth it made when it crashed into the concrete, letting the sound wash over me. Until it was interrupted by blinding headlights.

  He stepped out of the car, and my heart thudded to a stop. His Mathletes polo was soaked through, his hair wet and dark.

  “What the hell? Don’t you have an umbrella?” I shouted over the noise of the storm.

  “I was looking for you¸” he shouted back as he jogged toward the house. “I would have driven you back, but you ran out of there so fast, and I still had to take care of team stuff. One of the other kids said they saw someone pick you up.”

  “What about Sofia?”

  “What about her?”

  “Did she get home?”

  “I have no clue. And I don’t give a shit. Told her as much before the competition.” He reached the porch, and swiped at the rain that ran in rivulets down his forehead.

  I stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  He looked steadily back at me. “I’m saying I told her there was nothing between us. In no uncertain terms.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, so I just stood there, trying to keep the giddy smile I could feel building from taking over my whole face.

  “Where did you go?” I finally asked.

  “Where do you think? Where you always go when you think I won’t go after you.”

  “The water tower?”

  He nodded, running his hands back through his hair.

  “Do you think I’d climb the water tower with a storm coming in? What, do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No. No, I’ve never thought you were an idiot. I swear. I may have made a lot of mistakes, but I never made that one.” He stood there, cast in the weird yellow of the porch light against the deep gray sky, his expression pleading

  “You were right about Sofia, okay?” His voice dropped and softened. “You were always right.” He stepped toward me, gingerly, like he was afraid of spooking me, then reached down and took my hand. “But if you’re always right, then I feel like shit ever being wrong. And right now, I need to tell you that I was wrong. And I need you to still like me. Or at least not to hate me.”

  My chest fell, and air rushed out. I squeezed his hand. “Brendan. I could never hate you. And believe me, I wanted to a couple times in the past month or so.” His face twisted, like I’d stabbed him or kicked him or something.

  Droplets of rain dripped off the tips of his hair and onto his shirt. My eyes drifted down to his chest, where his shirt clung now, sopping wet and heavy. For two solid seconds, we breathed in and out at the same time.

  He licked his lips and blurted out, “Vincent is a total tool. I should have seen it, and—he’s just a tool.”

  I caught a breath between my lips, and looked at him through half-narrowed eyes. “Yes…”

  “It’s just that he hurt you. And I hate that. Ash, I—”

  “No. He didn’t.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “He didn’t. I’m just happy I don’t have to deal with him anymore.”

  Brendan’s eyes focused on my face in the strangest way, and his voice changed to something lower. Softer.

  “When you said that, at the competition. About everything being right there in front of me and me not being able to see it, or refusing to pay attention to it, or whatever…you weren’t talking about Mathletes, were you?”

  I twisted my hands together. My mouth did this weird thing where it wanted to break into a goofy smile that didn’t match my emotions. I forced it from turning upward, forced my whole head down. “I was talking about Mathletes,” I said.

  Brendan’s face fell. Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. He was disappointed. If I was ever going to have a chance at telling him with certainty, without completely embarrassing myself, this was it.

  “But that’s not the only thing I was talking about.” Something about that short sentence knocked the wind out of me. I struggled to fill my lungs.

  He didn’t say a word. I couldn’t stand it anymore. All the anger and all the confusion would gather up in a ball in my chest and propel me toward him. I’d tackle him right there on the front porch.

  That’s when a deafening crack ripped through the sky right above the house. I must have jumped a foot. And that marked the moment when we couldn’t just stand there anymore. I either had to leave, or tell him how I felt. There was nothing I needed more in the world than to be near him right then. Even if I’d wanted to turn around and stalk off across the front lawn, like I had so many other nights, I couldn’t.

  Then, thank God, he said something. “Can we get out of the rain?”

  I nodded dumbly and followed him.

  He swung the door open to a dark house. Our steps echoed on the shining marble floor.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They’re meeting some friends for dinner in the city. I’m sure they’ll get so trashed they’ll just stay there. Again.”
<
br />   He tossed his bag at the bottom of the steps just like any other afternoon, and I reflexively sidestepped it. He kept going, up to his room. Just like a normal evening.

  Except this wasn’t. This was so far from normal, even the tips of my hair felt electrified.

  But as we moved through his house in the same path as always, a strange calm overtook me as well. We made it to his room, and the perfectly made-up bed that was always my seat invited my beaten, exhausted body to sit down. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I was too wired, between the competition and screaming at Sofia and the rain and Brendan’s rain-soaked shirt and his weird, same-as-always but definitely-not-the-same mood right now.

  Brendan crossed to his dresser and pulled out a clean T-shirt. Then he stood there, facing away from me, letting the dry shirt dangle from his fingertips.

  “Listen, Brendan, I’m sorry I…”

  “Would you just shut up and let me talk for once?”

  “I…” My mouth clapped shut.

  “Do you know I never really liked her?” He turned and looked me right in the eyes. “I never really trusted her. Whatever was going on…between us… has been over for weeks, really. Since you left. And something stopped me from…I mean, we went out, and we kissed—a lot—but we never…”

  “Okay. Now you need to shut up,” I said, stepping closer to him. I was on the edge of giddiness. I could feel it starting to creep in. The one thing that could ruin it would be Brendan saying “slept with” and “Sofia” in the same sentence.

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out. I don’t know why, but I was relieved. I wanted to keep him from talking as long as possible. I guess I knew, somehow, that what he said would change everything.

  “I’ve been the biggest idiot on the planet.” He took exactly four steps toward me, slow and deliberate. I could see how shallow his breaths were, how tense his shoulders were. He squeezed the hem of his shirt and water dripped from it onto the carpet. I watched each drop explode on impact in slow motion.