"Alright, class." Mr. Phillips allowed the young adults to settle into a studious mode as he picked up a stack of papers off the corner of his desk. He stood in front of them, fanning the corners of the pages in his hand repeatedly with the thumb and index finger of his right hand until he had the attention of each person in the room.
"Now that we are 3 weeks in and it seems all the transfers and drops are locked in, we are going to do a little introduction exercise. Each of these sheets of paper" he began passing them out at the beginning of the first row "has its own match." He laughed to himself before continuing. "I thought I might mix your courses a bit and try out your math skills. In the upper left hand corner of each paper there is a number. The first set is randomly marked with a number from two to twenty eight. The second set will be marked with one of those numbers' squares. You need to find the person holding the square of your number or the square root of your number." He handed out the last four papers and returned to the front of the room. "Of course, there are numbers that would cause a problem with this arrangement. Those numbers have a plus sign next to them. So 2 matches 4. But 4+ matches 16. 16+ matches…two…fifty six? Yeah. Does everyone understand this?" Low mutters spread through the class accompanied by nods of understanding. He clapped his hands together loudly. "Alright! Let's get to it! Go go go!"
Everyone looked around cautiously before making a move, save one girl in the back row. Her eyes were locked on the back of the head of a classmate in the front row. Truth be told, her eyes had been locked on the blonde for weeks. They shared 2 classes but she had also kept a vigil watch for the girl around campus since she first spotted her in the advisor's office. She took a deep breath, threw her hair over her shoulder with a swift neck toss, and stood to her feet. As if sensing incoming danger, the other girl turned to her left with wide eyes. The wrong direction since her admirer was approaching on her right. The boy in the corner seat had already peeked at his neighbor's paper and seen, regrettably, that he and she were not compatible. He was still lingering in his seat when the brunette sauntered up to him. He gave her a coy smirk as he lifted his paper, beginning to speak. She held up her hand in front of his face, not making a sound. Eyes closed, she shook her head left once then right. She opened her eyes as she persuaded him out of his seat with a jerk of her head. Silently dejected by two beautiful girls in under a minute, he stood from his chair and began searching for his perfect match. She'd had no doubts up to this point but as she stood next to the object of her affection, she realized that she may not have the matching paper. But she cleared her throat anyway. It caught the other girl's attention.
"Any chance we're partners?" she smiled down at her.
She was a bit startled but she handled it coolly. "I'm number 2" she smiled back at the stranger.
She was leaping on the inside but outwardly confident as always as she sat in the vacant seat to the girl's right. "You're my perfect square root. Santana." She placed her hand to her chest.
"I'm Brittany." She offered her hand and Santana lightly shook it. "I guess that answers question one."
She quickly filled in the blank line next to 'name'. This had been done so many times in so many classes. Often times, Santana had done what many of the students around them were doing at that very moment. They would switch the papers, fill in the answers themselves and trade papers again. But this time she wanted to draw it out for as long as comfortably possible.
"Age?"
"Eighteen. And you?"
"A very fresh nineteen but I get better with age. I hope." Brittany responded with a silent laugh to the answer as she doodled a quick one nine on the paper. Santana stole quick glances at the girl while she wrote each answer, taking note of her milky arms and hands, practically void of any ornate jewelry. Except for the one digit that really meant anything. The ring finger of her left hand bore a petite stone encrusted band that piqued Santana's interest. Her thoughts began to wander, forming possible images of the person who placed the ring there.
"Santana..?"
"Hmm?"
"I didn't think I had gotten your name wrong already. I asked you your major. Mine's liberal arts."
"Sorry. Psychology. Liberal arts? Isn't that like saying 'undecided'?"
Brittany reacted to the question bashfully. She subconsciously rotated the ring repeatedly with her thumb as she filled in the answer. "I guess so. My dad really wanted me to go straight to college after high school. He was afraid I would get lost on my way to trying to find myself or something." She shrugged and offered a smile to her inquisitive partner, who smiled back, resting her head on her right hand.
"Maybe he just felt you and the boyfriend were getting too serious. Dads like to remind us that we don't need a man to make us whole. Some dads, anyway." Brittany looked genuinely confused until she caught the quick glance of the brown eyes and she realized her nervous tick had been noticed.
"Uh no. This," she held up her hand "is my mom's. Was my mom's." Santana didn't pause at the change of words or inflection. She pressed on with sincere curiosity. "Would she think you would get lost on your journey to self discovery?"
The blonde smiled incredulously at Santana only to get an inquisitive eyebrow raise in exchange. She fumbled for an answer. "I mean, I guess she would agree with Dad." Brittany could tell that the girl didn't believe her. She changed her answer. "No. No she wouldn't believe that I would get lost. She believed in me. And that's all that mattered. I could tell her dancing was all I wanted to do and she would support me in any way possible. But she's dead and I'm…here."
She was staring. Leaning on her arm, with a creased forehead, the dark haired girl was literally staring into the blue eyes looking back at her. As much as it should have unsettled her, Brittany found comfort in the intense oak eyes. She even felt a smile creeping upon her own face. Santana chose that exact moment to readjust herself in her seat. She turned her body in Brittany's direction and gave her a straightforward reply.
"Then you should dance. If it's what you love and who you are, and you have someone who believes in you-she still believes in you, you know- then that's what you need to do. Otherwise, nothing else will really work out because you'll always be thinking about what you could've had. But I'm sure I'm only telling you things you already know."
Brittany didn't know whether to be offended or impressed by Santana's perseverance. "You know, most people wouldn't be so forward about a stranger's life."
"Most people don't actually care about other people besides themselves." Santana shrugged. She liked her. She had only known her for a few moments, but Brittany felt an ease that she had yet to feel since the loss of her mother just 2 years earlier. She knew she had been walking in a fog, unwilling to let anyone in and barely seeing anyone through the gray, but Santana had ignored the barrier and somehow began molding a little niche in her. It was a curious feeling but still, one that she felt ready to welcome into her life. She turned back to the paper, preparing to ask the next question, but her hesitation awarded Santana the time to ask it first.
"What do you feel is your biggest personality flaw?" As if she were already in possession of a degree, Santana gingerly crossed her right leg over her left and twirled the ink pen between the fingers of her left hand in the air as she patiently awaited an answer to analyze. But it was a pose Brittany was familiar with and was eager to dismantle.
"My lack of self confidence. I am very shy and I don't let my true self show too often. The only time it fades is when I dance. Yours?"
Her mouth was open halfway through the confession but shut just as quickly when her thought was interrupted by the quick return of the question. It was Brittany's turn to raise her eyebrows in anticipation of an answer. Santana gave her a smirk and a nod as if saying "nicely done" as she uncrossed her legs and set the pen down before answering.
"Exact opposite. My abundance of self confidence is my biggest setback."
"Wait. That doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does. Think about it. When you feel like you know everything and can do anything, you lack the desire to actually exert any effort. It makes it hard to be teachable in all situations."
Brittany's face was frowned up in an obvious display of sheer confusion so Santana opted to give her a clearer understanding with a scenario.
"Think of it this way. Say you and I are friends." Brittany nodded with a smile at the thought. "And we're out walking downtown or something. Maybe I have been interested in you for awhile. Romantically. Just for the sake of this scenario, of course."
Brittany's eyes momentarily widened as she nodded again and softly repeated the words "of course."
"So I spot a couple of people. Maybe they're lovers. Maybe just friends. But then I start telling you that I can identify the level of their relationship just by watching them. You would be enticed to hear more so I would go on, because I'm just that alluring." She struck a pose to punctuate the sentence. Brittany mockingly rolled her eyes before they both laughed at the gesture.
"Then I would tell you all about body language and how close they are to each other. I'd go on about how lovers hold hands but that friends often do too and I would subtly demonstrate by using you as my partner in the exercise. I'd probably just brush my arm against yours, gauging your reaction before taking your hand into mine. I'd say 'this is how friends hold hands' and grip your hand palm to palm like in a prayer circle. Then I would explain the lovers' method and entwine my fingers with yours. And that'd be it."
The little clarity that had been shining in her blue eyes quickly evaporated as she was lost again.
"What would be it?"
"End of story. I would have your hand in mine and not let go of it."
"But what does that story have to do with your flaw? And what makes you think I wouldn't let go?"
"Because you'd want to hold my hand just as badly as I would want to hold yours." She smiled.
Brittany's lips parted as if she intended to contest the assumption. But nothing came out but the slightest chuckle.
"Overconfidence duly noted" she replied.