You watch her from across the table, squinting at the homework in front of her as she works out math problems. Scattered among the piles of textbooks that surround you both are piles of paper with chicken scratch equations. You love her handwriting, written in graceful strokes when she passes notes to you in class. When she does math, though, everything becomes illegible.
She mutters to herself as she circles her answer then scratches it out angrily. Must be wrong. Again. You both adore and wince at her frustration.
Give it up Britt, you insist. You've been working on that one for HOURS.
No, I ALMOST have it. Let me try again…I think I did something wrong.
You sigh and sit back in your chair, and turn back to your history homework. This was always what's been easy to you, not math.
But Britt likes math, for whatever insane reason.
Yeah, but history is just a long tale of betrayal, schemes, and deceit, you insist. Heroes and villains. That's your kind of thing.
She's not as interested in history as you, though. She swears the numbers are simply performing a dance, and all you have to do is learn the steps to dance with them. Not only do you have to learn the dance; you have to feel it, she insists. Most people don't get it because they know the steps, but they don't put the heart into feeling and understanding them.
Like Mr. Schue, she points out. You can tell she's still sore that he implied that she's dumb. Even though the two of you weren't on the best of terms at the time, you managed to sneak a glance at her the day Mr. Schue wanted the Glee club to sell taffy. You see her squint at 5000 x 0.25 = 20,000. It doesn't even look right to YOU, and math doesn't come that easily. You can hear Britt's voice squeaking in your head. If you multiply a number by a fraction, it becomes smaller, not bigger. You smile at the thought of her adorable, nerdy frustration until you realize that she'll probably voice these complaints to Artie, and not you.
The sound of her pen slamming down on the tabletop shakes you from your thoughts. Britt rarely ever gets this frustrated.
I tried really hard, San. I almost got it, I swear.
It's okay, Britt. I need to do my own homework anyway.
Besides, you think to yourself as you suppress a smirk, just because you finish your own math homework first doesn't mean you have to show off and try to do mine.