4 Love at First Sight

Math class, and I couldn’t focus on the discussion. My mind is distracted by the strange feeling I felt when I saw Kyle’s face. Even the thought of it makes my head feel dizzy and slowly puts me into fantasy mode. It’s as if I saw a celebrity and wanted to celebrate in excitement. He’s just too handsome and I can’t help myself but admire him. I wasn’t able to ask him what grade he’s in and if we’ll ever see each other again. This school is big and what are the odds of us bumping into each other once more?

Kyle.

Kyle, what?

I only know his first name. How can I search for him on social media? This is the first time that I wanted Math class to end so badly. Usually, I look forward to Math classes because I have been in love with mathematics ever since kindergarten. Looks like somebody had taken Math’s place in my heart.

“No.” I whispered to myself with my eyes tightly shut as I shook my head sideways to shrug the thought off my mind.

I tried so hard to focus on Mrs. Cobblestone as she teaches us about polynomial equations but even her surname is distracting me. I sighed.

What’s worse is that she called on me when my hand wasn’t raised. She might have noticed that I wasn’t paying any attention. I had no choice but to walk up to the GREEN blackboard and solve the equation.

X minus Y minus A B C D plus K Y L E

It is not making any sense! Right now, it seems like my brain is tied up in a knot. Surprisingly, I don’t know how to divide polynomials even though I was good at this during middle school. I was even the school’s representative during Math competitions.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“two X cube plus five X squared minus eight X minus sixteen divided by two X squared plus X minus eight” I whispered repeatedly, hoping that magically, my brain would show me the answers.

I tried solving it on the board and used the long division method. It’s taking me so long and the chalk begins to melt away on my hands as I keep on writing, erasing, and writing again. Finally, I came up with an answer, wrote it and boxed it before adding two diagonal lines at the bottom right corner of the box. I returned the tiny bit of chalk left to Mrs. Cobblestone and then she analyzed my solution before marking my answer wrong. I forgot to put the negative sign. It was miserable because that was my first failed board work. Fortunately, Mrs. Cobblestone still praised me for my effort.

I went straight back to my seat and buried my face in my hands. I am so embarrassed.

Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang. I immediately rushed out of the classroom to go to my next class with eyes on my feet and my head still dropped down, letting my hair fall to conceal my face. History class is upstairs and I’m glad to find a new set of classmates, my fellow math students should’ve thought that I was stupid. Now, I’m just self-conscious. This isn’t the Hazel people knew back in middle school.

History class was cancelled because the teacher didn’t show up. A substitute didn’t even bother taking over the class so we just decided to leave the classroom after twenty minutes of waiting. There’s only thirty minutes left before lunchtime so I just went straight to the cafeteria to chill.

The cafeteria is empty and the crew’s just starting to prepare the food station. I walked to a table and placed my things on it before sitting down. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and searched the internet for an explanation of what I’m feeling right now. I typed in “instant feeling of excitement upon seeing a stranger for the first time” then clicked enter. About 9,080,000 results came in and the first thing that popped out was a link to an article that says “Is love at first sight real? 5 signs it’s happening to you”. Love at first sight? Is that even a thing? I clicked the link and scanned through the text. It says that love at first sight is quite a normal phenomenon that happens when you see a person the first time, and instantly, romantic love is triggered and it runs along certain electrical and chemical pathways in the brain. It’s normal to feel queasy and anxious when this happens. Gosh. I need to study more about this. They don’t teach this in middle school and I don’t have subjects for this in high school yet. Or is this even included in the curriculum? This is so confusing. Then, I searched “how to avoid love at first sight.” But I couldn't find any solid answers.

Time flew so quickly and I didn’t notice when students started entering the cafeteria. My eyes swept the entire place to look for any signs of Catherine but she’s nowhere to be found. I wanted to tell her about the guy I met earlier and ask her if she could give me any advice. Based on her stories yesterday, Catherine already had a boyfriend but they only lasted for six weeks because it didn’t work out. She said that the attraction faded when she learned that her ex-boyfriend was not only arrogant, but lazy, that he only bragged about his parents’ money. She didn’t mention how the attraction started. I wanna know if she experienced love at first sight too.

When more minutes passed and I still hadn’t seen Catherine, I decided to eat my lunch so I could finish early and I would have more time to walk around campus and search for the laboratory for my Biology class.

It isn’t easy to walk down hallways alone because almost everyone here has their own buddy that they could talk to while searching for their own classrooms. I look like a lost kid who doesn’t seem to fit in very well. Catherine must’ve found new friends to chat with. She might’ve forgotten about me. Besides, I didn’t contribute much to our conversations yesterday.

I found the Biology lab at the end of the hall on the third floor. It looked a bit different compared to the other classrooms. This room has eight long tables with four chairs behind them. Each table has two microscopes. When I saw it, I finally felt excited because I remembered that during middle school, I was the only one who could identify specimens fast on a microscope. The activity later should be fun.

There are two students already in class and they seem to know each other. They are standing at the backmost part of the room behind the last table. Their bags are placed on the floor and they’re just studying the microscope. The boy looks like a nerd with thick bangs and glasses and the girl looks just like him minus the bangs.

I took my time to choose a table and finally decided to go for the first table on the left side of the classroom. But when I was about to sit, someone grabbed me and pulled me towards another direction.

“Don’t sit there. I heard that the Biology teacher loves calling students who sit in front for recitations.” A familiar voice called. I let out a sigh of relief cause I knew that it’s Catherine. Finally.

“Where were you this morning?” I asked when we’re done placing our bags on the third row table. “I didn’t see you at the flag-raising ceremony.”

“Oh, I was late. I missed it.” she answered while searching her bag for her mirror and lipstick. “You know, the usual morning routine, my hair was a pain in the ass” she said before putting on some pink lipstick. The sound she made while smacking her lip was kind of annoying but I’m relieved that she’s already here.

“Do you know that you’ll get detention later for missing the ceremony?” I asked.

“Yup.” she replied quickly. “But my dad is friends with the principal. I’m sure he’ll let me pass”

Oh. Good for you.

More students started entering the laboratory and filling seats. The teacher came just in time. I counted thirty students inside and there’s two more vacant seats, one at the front and one at the back.

The class started with an introduction. Ms. Davis introduced herself first then called the students in front to introduce themselves next.

“Ok.” Ms. Davis said after the last student introduced himself. “So I think we can start now with the discussion. Only Mr. Johnson and Mr. Villegas are absent.”

“Present!” a familiar voice from outside the classroom shouted. “Sorry, I’m late.” He said while entering the room. I immediately dropped my head and hoped for the floor to have an opening so that I could escape. My hands started fidgeting upon the sight of his face.

“And you are?” Ms. Davis asked.

“Kyle, Kyle Villegas.” he answered

Kyle Villegas.

So that’s his name.