Two points.

That's the distance between me and the only person in this school who could ruin my valedictorian speech. Two points on an AP Physics test about electromagnetic induction, which I studied for six hours, annotated in three colors, and still somehow scored lower on than a boy who builds things under his desk during lecture.

Ninety-seven. I got a ninety-seven.

Theo Gallagher got a ninety-nine. He folded his test into a paper airplane without looking at the grade and launched it at the recycling bin from across the room. It went in. Of course it did. The trajectory was probably perfect.

I want to scream.

Instead, I organize my notes into the blue folder, because I am Priya Desai, student council president, and Priya Desai does not scream in AP Physics. She takes measured breaths, realigns her priorities, and remembers that two points on a single test does not a semester make.

Dr. Okafor is explaining vector fields at the board. I'm copying every word. Two seats ahead and four to the left, Theo is soldering something, and I know this because I can hear the faint hiss of the iron under his desk and I can smell the flux. He's not even pretending to take notes.

The injustice of it keeps me up at night. Not literally. I have an 11 PM bedtime. But metaphorically? I am awake and furious.

After class, I'm packing my bag when Dr. Okafor calls both of us over. Something about a shared lab credit from the regional physics showcase. Theo materializes beside me, and for a person who doesn't seem to own a comb, he is annoyingly tall.

"The cross-product notation on problem eight," I say, not looking at him. "Was the answer really the negative k-hat direction?"

He glances at me. "You know it was."

"I second-guessed myself."

"Don't." He says it simply. Not condescending. Just... factual. Like he's reporting the weather.

Then he does the thing. The thing that has been slowly, methodically destroying my ability to function in this classroom for the past two months.

He explains the problem.

Not the whole thing. Just the part where I hesitated. He pulls a scrap of paper from somewhere, sketches the vectors in three quick lines, and walks me through the cross-product in thirty seconds. His voice is low, patient, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world to explain something to the one person who should already know it.

My abdomen tightens. I refuse to acknowledge it.

I understand it instantly. Of course I do. I understood it when I took the test, too. But I'd stared at his sketch of the vectors on the exam and second-guessed my intuition because his notation was different from mine, and for one horrifying moment I'd wondered if his way was better.

It was. I just didn't want to admit it.

"Got it?" He's already putting the paper away.

"I had it before you explained it."

The corner of his mouth lifts. Not a smile. Just the suggestion of one. "Then why'd you ask?"

Because your voice does something to my prefrontal cortex that I'd like to file a complaint about. "Confirming my methodology."

"Confirmed." He picks up the half-assembled thing from under his desk, tucks it into his backpack, and walks away. No goodbye. No lingering. Just a tall boy in a grey hoodie disappearing into the hallway crowd like he was never there.

I stand in the empty classroom and stare at the scrap of paper he left behind. His handwriting is atrocious. Like a doctor's, if the doctor had solved the problem faster than I did and didn't care.

I fold the paper and put it in the blue folder.

For reference purposes.

Layla finds me at my locker looking like I've been personally wronged by the universe.

"You got a ninety-seven," she says, reading my face. "On a test."

"He got a ninety-nine."

"He being the kid who builds robots? The one with the hoodie?"

"I don't know what he wears."

Layla gives me a look that communicates roughly seventeen things at once, none of them flattering. "Girl. You know what he wears."

"I observe my academic environment. It's called being aware."

She closes my locker for me. "It's called something."

I walk to my car, blast the AC even though it's October, and sit in the parking lot for six minutes longer than necessary. My phone is in my hand. I open Google.

I type three words and delete them.

I type them again.

I close the browser, start the engine, and drive home at exactly the speed limit, because I am Priya Desai and I do not Google "how to stop thinking about someone you hate."

Except I did. And the first result said "you can't."