Algebra was one of those classes that never failed to test my patience. I could memorize formulas, sure. I could even explain them back if I had to. But applying them? That was where my brain started chewing its own leg off. The numbers didn’t click into place the way words or instincts did.
Today was worse than usual. Mr. O’Leary had given us an in-class assignment: a set of quadratic equations that seemed deliberately designed to piss me off. My pencil tapped against the paper in an uneven rhythm, my handwriting getting messier with every line. The wolf in me didn’t like the idea of being beaten by… symbols.
“You look like you’re about to eat the worksheet,” Gabriel said, sliding into the empty chair next to mine.
I growled — low enough that only he could hear — and pointed at the half-scribbled mess in front of me. “This makes no sense. At all.”
He leaned over, scanning my work. “Okay, first problem — you’re skipping steps.”
“Because steps are boring,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but they get you to the answer. Here—look. Factor this term out first, then combine the like terms. It’s not about being fast, it’s about seeing the pattern.”
I glanced at him. “You’re really good at this.”
He shrugged. “It’s just logic. You’d get it if you slowed down.” He said it without the smugness most people used — not like he was better, just like he wanted me to win.
I sighed, erased half the problem, and tried it his way. He kept talking me through it, calm and patient, until the numbers actually started falling into place.
Then it happened.
From the far side of the room, a sharp hiss of air — fast, thin — cut through the background chatter. I didn’t think, didn’t look. My hand shot up and closed around a sharpened pencil in mid-flight, less than an inch from Gabriel’s face.
The room went dead silent.
I turned the pencil over in my fingers once, then glanced at the kid who’d thrown it. “Thanks,” I said evenly, “I needed a sharper one.”
I set my old, dull pencil aside and started working the next equation with the new one, like nothing had happened.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabriel staring at me — not just surprised, but really looking at me, as if trying to process what he’d just seen.
“That was…” he began, but stopped. “Fast.”
“Reflexes,” I said with a shrug. “Guess I’m good at something in this class.”
No one else said a word for the rest of the period. And though Gabriel went back to explaining the math problem, his eyes kept flicking to me, like he wasn’t sure if I’d just saved him from losing an eye… or if he should be just a little bit afraid of how easily I’d done it.