The Connecter

I raised my hand, "Mr Bradford?"

The Economics teacher paused in his teaching and turned to me, "Yes? What is it?"

"Isn't the formula for marginal utility the change in total utility divided by the change in quantity?"

"It is," he stared at me blankly.

"Okay," I exhaled, wondering how I was going to put it to him.

"That's all? That's the cheap question you interrupted my teaching for? I know you to be better than this, Sage."

Mr Bradford resumed the lesson like he didn't just shoot bullets at a poor student.

Forcing the fire in me down my throat, I struck out the figures he had calculated and decided to redo it myself.

I only pity the students that end up doing this on the tests too.

A familiar musk scent washed across my nostrils and settled in the classroom. At once, my eyes darted sideways.

One of his bag straps rested on his shoulders with the support of his clutching hand, while the other dangled for its dear life. He silently settled down on his seat and began shuffling for an item in his black bag.

Amaya continuously nudged at me, smirking foolishly.

Eventually, my pen fell off my hand from the vigorous shaking. Not only did it drop noisily on the floor but also decided to roll over to the foot of Lucas's table.

Lucas looked away from the interior of his bag and stared at the floor, where the faint sound came from. Picking up the pen, he shoved it right into his bag.

"Wasn't that your pen?" Amaya whispered.

"It was, you dummy!" I whispered back.

"Well, I'm not going to give you my pen, so you better ask him for it."

I glanced at him, quickly studying his facial expression.

He seemed numb— as always. Neither could I tell what he was thinking nor if he was someone I could approach.

I watched the teacher go on with the lesson, making sure to ask different students to re-explain how he arrived at the answer on the board.

He was beginning to round up, setting an assignment down. I quickly got the message that the period was almost over as Mr Bradford was always time-conscious.

I zipped open my bag and crossed my fingers before diving in. My heart raced as I pulled out a pen.

Thank you. Thank you!

I let a smile take over my face. I felt relieved, like icy water was dumped on my head on a hot summer day.

I pressed the tip of the pen against my book with so much enthusiasm, just for no ink to ooze out.

Damn it!

Why did Amaya have to hit the pen out of my hand? And why the hell did it decide to take a drive towards Lucas's table? Of all places!

And who the fuck keeps a pen at first glance without knowing who owns it?

I glanced over at his table again, watching him zip his bag close.

I didn't want to talk to him at all! Not for that moment, at least. I still had the stupid dare to complete and I didn't want to leave an unseductive first impression.

I watched as Amaya wrote down what the teacher marked out as an assignment.

"Stop shooting holes into my book and ask him for the dang pen!" Amaya widened her eyes at me as she spoke under her breath.

Like on a cue, the bell went off as Amaya finished her sentence.

"Alright class, get these done and have your notes submitted on my table before Friday," Mr Bradford annonced prior to his exit.

I immediately turned to Lucas, "Hi, could you..."

My voice trailed off as I saw him get up and walk out of the classroom. He never even batted an eyelid in my direction. 

Amaya's snicker was awfully audible as she drew close and stretched her pen towards me.

I stared at the empty seat for a hot minute before accepting Amaya's pen.

"How are you going to get your pen back? We can't keep sharing a pen for the rest of the day."

"I'll go ask our classmates if anyone has a spare. Now shut up. Jeez!"

I turned my gaze to the door for a second, then went on with writing my assignments.

I just needed to check something out before going on with my foolish ideas.

The moment I placed my Economics notebook in my bag, I got up and walked over to the front row— the second column, to be exact.

"Ayisha?"

The pretty eighteen-year-old looked up from her novel, "Oh hey, Sage. What's up?"

"Nothing much. I just need a pen."

She laughed, "As usual. It's almost like I'm your sugar mommy or something."

I joined in on the laughter.

Ayisha handed me a white pen embroidered with little pink hearts.

"Thanks. I owe you one," I stared at the pen, then inwardly sighed, "Oh, yeah, I once overheard you saying something about you approaching Lucas some weeks ago."

"Oh, yeah? What about it?" She blinked at me.

"I'd like to hear it," I passed the pen around my fingers.

"Why? You like him?" She raised a brow.

"No! No. I just want to hear the story."

She smiled, "Alright. Have a seat," she nudged at the empty chair to her right.

Taking a seat, I watched Ayisha intently as she contemplated on how to tell her experience while making it sound a million times dramatic.

As usual, she looked beautiful. She was one of those that you could never take a bad picture of because they always looked perfect— even when doing the most embarrassing things.

Her red hijab balanced on her head and went on its journey down to her neck, further trailing into her black top. The light-brown hair net underneath her hijab was now insanely visible to me as I sat near her. They stood there to conceal her front hairs and did so well as they almost blended into her skin. Her eyes complemented her hair net as they battled for the same colour.

She looked moderate, yet she still stood out from afar. It made me wonder how partial the world was to make only a portion of humans so pretty without even trying, while others had to deal with insecurities from not getting a single good picture even after dolling on so much makeup.

"Remember when Lucas just came sometime last month?"

"Yeah?"

"So, I decided to approach him and get to socialize with him. Well, I won't lie, he's very hot, and I knew it was going to be a big flex if I was one of those that got to talk to him first before the other drooling girls."

I laughed.

She smiled amusedly, "Well, he came some minutes before closing on the first day, which I found weird, but I decided to follow him as he was leaving. To my surprise, he started going upstairs to the rooftop. I thought everyone had forgotten about that place because you know, they turned it into a dumping ground for broken chairs and equipment."

"I stopped him at the stairs and asked for his name. He did respond normally. The problem began when I told him I wanted to get to know him more, just like a quick intro. You know what he told me?"

"What?" I breathed out.

"He said he wasn't interested in any of my flirty talk, so I should go rail myself and rail the other girls too. What does that even mean?"

I laughed, covering my mouth with my hands.

"Then the following week, I started hearing some of the stuff he did in his previous school. Bullying his juniors, smoking around, flunking school and all those sorts. He was a complete nuisance. Although I don't know if the rumours are true, I'm just glad I didn't succeed in getting myself involved with someone like that."

I looked up at Amaya as she approached us.

"How about you just birth a child here?"

I laughed, "I'll try my best."

"Hey," Ayisha smiled at our third-party.

"Hey, girl."

I got up, "Well, thanks for the small talk... and the pen," I flashed the pen at Amaya before smiling at Ayisha.

"Anytime."

Amaya and I walked away from her seat and outside the classroom.

"You want to know what we were talking about, right?"

"I don't care. You can even go be her best friend," she folded her arms.

"What?" I laughed.

"Do you know how many minutes you spent with her? And you just left me alone without even saying anything. I didn't have anyone to talk to. You know you're all I've got and you abanoned me," she furrowed her brows.

"Aww," I puppy dog-eyed, playing with her cheeks, "I'm sorry, baby. I just wanted to go hear about Lucas before deciding to do anything about my pen or the dare. You're the one who said to be seductive, aren't you? Well, I'd have probably gotten an earful from him if I had done that."

"Whatever man."

"Are you that mad?" I turned and stood right in front of her, restricting her from moving any further.

"No, not really."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Okay then, smile and dance." 

"Hell no!" She laughed.

I smiled at her, "You look so pretty when you smile."

"While you look like a potato," she teased.

"Well, I changed my mind. You look like a sloth when you smile."

"Jokes on you, I love sloths."

I rolled my eyes, then clung to her hand, "Let's go. It's almost break-over," we sprinted off to Class C.