Nerd
He hated this class.
Algebra is a whole different language. Pablo had no clue how to navigate it. He often skipped it, but here at the end of the semester, his tardies and absences had accumulated and he was close to failing the entire class. He sauntered in hoping to save his grade with a bare minimum attempt. He had no interest in summer school as a Jr. Summer time was for the boys.
The rigid structure of math altogether flummoxed him.
THIS plus THAT could only equal THIS. There was no wiggle room above or below. It was all finite. The lack of fluidity suffocated him.
As he sat down in his assigned seat, his class mates turned and gave him that "Oh you actually showed up!" look.
Andres, the math wiz smirked. "El perdido. En donde te escondiste?" He turned back around.
Pablo shrugged. "Here and there. Ya te la you know."
The Algebra teacher also noticed her first row was actually full.
"Mr. Reyes, so nice of you to join us." She stopped to think. "I’m not sure where you left off." She turned to Andres who sat in front of Pablo and Becky who sat behind him. "Would you guys help Mr. Reyes catch up, at least for today. He’ll have to see me after class to talk about pulling up his grade." Miss Talamantes gave him that raised eyebrow which meant business.
For 45 minutes , Pablo toyed with the idea of paying Andres to do his homework. If that didn’t work, he’d just bully him into it. He sat there mucking around in the frustration of stupid letters that stood for numbers.
This is so stupid. He thought. When the hell am I going to have to complete the square or find the fucking surface area of a stupid ass cylinder?
Andres, being the book worm he was, never got the chance to shine in front of his peers. He was hardly the cool guy. He wasn’t in band or student council but he also wasn’t rough enough to do anything other than head straight home after school. He once asked Demon if he could join the skater/punk gang that had just initiated Pablo.
Demon’s response?
FUCK NO!
Demon bellowed that to Andres' face as the other members picked Pablo up off of Happy Corner. Pablo and the rest of the guys laughed at Andres.
That humiliation still stung. And today he would lord his mathematical dominance over Pablo.
"What don’t you get? It’s simple." He shrugged, glowing in his superiority.
Pablo’s head steamed. He dropped his pencil in frustration, admitting defeat.
Andres scoffed. "Big bad Pablo letting a simple algebra equation beat him?" He raised his brow. "I’ve seen you fight guys two times bigger than you and this simple math is giving you a headache?"
Pablo exhaled. He nodded emphatically.
He leaned into Andres' space and smugly said, "I’ll mop the floor with you in English. Literature, themes, character arcs, all that bullshit. Te hago de agua." He slumped back into his seat.
Andres laughed aloud, rolling his eyes. "No mames. There’s no way you can write a better essay than me? Do you even know who Atticus Finch is?" He laughed again.
Becky chimed in to Pablo’s defense. "Andres, he’s right." She pushed her glasses back onto the top of her nose. "He scored better than 85 percent of the seniors on the English portion of the SAT." She sat back, meekly.
Pablo crossed his arms.
"Yeah, fuckin nerd."
