A/N: Okay, this chapter is a little different than most of them have been so far…but what's life without a little drama? Eh? Eh? (Whoa, suddenly I'm Canadian.)

Anywho, just wanted to thank y'all for your reviews (Okay, now I'm Texan.). You people are amazing! Don't forget to review at the end of this chapter, too. Your input is greatly appreciated! ;)

…I have nothing more to say. On with the story!

It was obvious Alex realized right away that he'd said something stupid. I had the strongest urge to deck him in the face. But I had to remember my Anger Management classes—not because I wanted to stay calm, but because I didn't want to go back. Those people were insane.

"Look, I'm sorry," Alex said quickly, backtracking. "I shouldn't have said that. That was dumb. I didn't mean that. She's pretty, is what I meant."

Yeah, right. The urge to deck him grew stronger. But really, what did it matter? It wasn't worth it to punch him and end up going back to the loonyhouse, but if I said another word to him I was likely to lose all my self-restraint. So I rolled my eyes and started walking towards the door.

"It's just—" he said. I had my backpack slung over one shoulder and Quinn's books under my arm as I weaved through the desks to get to the front of the room. I paused when he spoke (God only knows why). He was sitting on one of the tables; I turned around to look at him, my eyes narrowed.

"What?" I said.

"I mean," he continued, right away taking the opportunity I had given him to speak. "She must be pretty special, for you to date her for so long. It's been what, six months?"

"Seven," I corrected coldly. He let out a low whistle. He'd looked a bit worried when he was tripping over his own words making excuses for calling Quinn hot, but all that worry was gone from his face, replaced with…I dunno, a cool confidence (which was not a good look on him, in my opinion).

"That's pretty amazing," he said. "Especially for you."

"What do you mean?" I asked guardedly. He offered a slight grin—I didn't return it.

"Well, you were always a bit of a serial dater, Reese," Alex said. "Remember? Heart of ice?"

"Huh?" I said, momentarily distracted from my anger/annoyance by confusion.

"You know, at that golf tournament in Pasadena…you said…"

"Oh, right." I remembered now. I had been bragging (or whatever you wanted to call it when I would talk about how awesome I was)…and I'd said that I'd never settle down, because I had a heart of ice. I'd said no girl could keep my attention for very long.

That was in sophomore year, before Quinn happened to me. She had pretty much melted my heart of ice.

"Well, times change," I said. I was really hoping we could get this conversation over with soon, so that he could admit he was trying to steal my girlfriend and I could punch him and that would be that.

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "They sure do. I don't think anyone could have guessed that Quinn Pensky and Logan Reese would get together. I guess that's why you kept it a secret for so long, huh? Because of people's potential reactions."

I just gave him a half-shrug. He wouldn't get anything more from me until he turned this conversation more in the direction of something I could injure him for, Anger Management classes or not.

"And you have to admit, it is kind of weird," Alex went on, with a little laugh to show he didn't mean any offense (as if I cared). "Quinn the brilliant genius and Logan the…well, you get the point."

What was that supposed to mean? I knew I was no whiz kid, but yeesh.

"I can see why you like her, though," Alex went on, because I was still diligently refusing to respond until I could find a point in the conversation where it would be appropriate to insert a swear word. "She's…pretty, she's friendly, she's super super smart…"

What was it with this guy constantly bringing up the matter of her intelligence? It was starting to annoy me more than his comment on her alleged hotness.

"What's your point?" I asked impatiently. If he wasn't about to get to the girlfriend-stealing part soon, I'd have to find a way to hurt him later. I didn't have all day to wait around.

"Didn't she get offered a full scholarship to some genius college during sophomore year?" Alex asked, still not getting to the point. "I heard she has an IQ of like 177. Do you have any idea how high that is?" He sounded pretty impressed.

I shook my head, then realized that me not knowing how high that was probably didn't increase my chances of having a very high IQ myself. But really, I had no idea where he was going with all this. Why was he going on and on about what a genius Quinn was?

"So?" I said.

"I mean, half the time in class I have no idea what she's saying, and I'm actually okay at Physics," Alex said, and it was sort of nice to hear him insult himself, in a way. In a backhanded, compliment-y way. "I bet it's kind of hard to keep up with her outside of class, too."

I still didn't know what he was getting at, but when he said that, it did sort of make me think (involuntarily, I swear!). I remembered the chemical defribulator (Defrizzilator? Defribrillator? Whatever) thing she had been going on about lately. I'm good at chemistry, but really the only words I'd understood in her sentences had been things like "the" and "and". And I still didn't know who Stephen Hawking was. So yeah, I guess you could say she was pretty hard to keep up with. Especially for me.

"It must take someone pretty smart to keep up with her," Alex commented, and he was kind of right. After all, I'd been forced by her to read the dictionary just so I wouldn't mix up my vocabulary so much. And, sure, that had increased my knowledge of long words…but, probably even more than Alex, half the time I had no idea what Quinn was saying. And like I'd noticed before, she tended to laugh at me a lot.

There was no denying it. Quinn was a genius. But that didn't mean I was stupid.

Did it?

"Like Mark Del Figgalo," Alex went on, seemingly oblivious to what was going on inside my head. "Not exactly Einstein material, but he did all right in school. He hung on with Quinn for two years, but I could tell that a lot of the time her brain was going so fast and he was practically standing still. He couldn't keep up forever. And he had a 4.0!"

I wondered if Alex knew about my C and D average. He probably did. Actually, I was beginning to suspect what all this was about. And I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit.

"So," I said, "You're saying…what? That Quinn is some sort of super genius that nobody in the world can keep up with? Yeah, I knew that."

"Not exactly," Alex said with a laugh. "I mean, you do have to be on your toes, sort of. You know…be smart."

"All right," I said, finally losing it. "Can you just come out with it? Stop with all your little laughs and beating around the bush and just tell me what you're trying to say here? Because I am seriously just considering dislocating your jaw to stop you from talking."

"Hey, now," Alex said, holding up his hands in defense. "No need to be all hostile. I apologized for that stupid comment in the beginning—I'm just trying to have a conversation here."

"Just a conversation?" I said, crossing my arms. "Go on, then. Have your conversation." I was glaring at him, so he had to know what I had just said—about not beating around the bush—still stood.

Alex sighed. "Look," he said. "Let me just sum it up here. Quinn has a 4.0 GPA and could probably get her Ph.D by March if she wanted and start teaching college-level courses by April. You…have a C and D average and read Captain Underpants."

"Hey," I said defensively. "What's wrong with Captain Underpants?" He is a very entertaining superhero. And a good role-model, I'm sure.

"Well…look down," he insisted. I did. I was holding in my arms all the books Quinn had been carrying…A Brief History of Time, by that guy Stephen Hawking; Advanced Multivariable Calculus (was that a form of math or what?); and some book by Albert Einstein…which appeared to be written in German.

"Oh," I said. There was a bit of variance in our reading levels, I had to admit. Then the rest of what he had said sunk in, and I looked up sharply. "So," I said angrily. "Are you saying I'm too stupid to be dating Quinn, or something?"

"Dude," Alex said, shaking his head. "You're making this about you. I don't mean it like that. I'm not trying to insult you or anything. I'm just thinking about Quinn…when does she seem happiest to you?"

The question caught me off guard (plus, as a side note, I hated the person asking the question), but I answered almost immediately, "When she's working on an experiment or a Quinnvention." I knew right away that was true. She always seemed so excited about it. It was actually one of the things I liked best about her…her passion for the things she loved (and yeah, I liked to include myself on that list).

"Right," he said, nodding. "And do you ever understand what she's doing enough to help her, or anything?"

"Not really," I said truthfully. I couldn't help remembering all the times I used to see Mark helping Quinn out with her Quinnventions. She had always seemed to appreciate his help. But really, what could I do to help her? I was barely getting a passing grade in this class.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, man," Alex said, and as soon as he said that I knew I was probably going to anyway. "But don't you think…Quinn would be better off with someone who gets her? Who understands her love and passion for science? That she would frankly be happier with someone else? Someone more on her intelligence level? Someone…well, smarter?" Talk about question after question. And talk about direct. Obviously he wasn't beating around any form of bush at this point.

"No," I said immediately, sure of my answer (not that I had really stopped to think about it). "She's fine."

"You're thinking about yourself, again!" Alex said with frustration. "I'm talking about Quinn here."

Oh, come on. I didn't see the difference.

But then, suddenly, I did find myself thinking about it from Quinn's point of view. The thoughts leapt unbidden into my mind…about all the times she'd sighed or rolled her eyes or laughed at my 'stupidity'. About how happy she was when she was talking science with people who actually understood. About how she'd seemed disappointed when I didn't recall a single detail of anything she had told me about her latest experiments or whatever.

Would she really be happier with someone smarter?

That seemed ridiculous, but was it really? I knew she got frustrated with me sometimes…me and my inability to comprehend…

"For Quinn's sake," Alex said, and his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, "maybe you should think about it. That's all I'm saying. For Quinn's own good…maybe you should put your own feelings out of the way for a little bit and think about it. I'm just trying to help."

"So you think…" I said slowly. All my anger seemed to have evaporated. I felt kind of dazed. "That I really am too dumb for her? That she'd be better off…without me?"

The words felt all wrong coming out of my mouth. Wrong for me. But were they wrong for her? What was I even saying anymore? Pathetic. I'm confusing myself. No fancy Quinn-terminology necessary.

"I think," Alex said, "that if you really loved Quinn, you'd let her go. You'd let her be happier with someone who really gets her."

That's stupid, was my automatic reaction. But for some reason I wasn't feeling so sure. Was it so stupid? And wait, what was he implying with the whole 'someone who really gets her' crap?

"And are you offering yourself up for that position?" I said, my anger flaring again. Maybe I could punch him in the face.

Alex shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "I'd like that, anyway. I really like her. If it comes to that, I'd be happy, but I don't want to rush things…and I just want what's best for her. I'm not out to hurt you here, either, Reese. If someone comes along smarter than me I'd want him to have her. I think—I hope—you and I both want what's best for her. I could only hope that I'd be what's best."

And there it was: he had admitted pure and simple his evil plan to steal my girlfriend. But my renewed anger had faded as quickly as it had come, because I was too lost in memories I hadn't been planning on reminiscing about—all the times I had felt kind of stupid in comparison to her. I hadn't thought it was such a big deal back then.

But was I really making her unhappy? Dragging her down?

I hated to admit it, hated it so much, but Alex had a point, and I could see his reasoning behind it. Quinn was doing amazingly right now. I could only imagine—though I never had, before this—how much more amazing she could be doing with someone who really deserved her, who really understood her.

Not someone like Alex, because in my mind Alex was still evil, and even though he had a point didn't mean I was grateful for it. Some Russian violinist boy, maybe. Someone who understood everything there was to know about chemical defibrillation and Physics and knew who Stephen Hawking was and read books by Albert Einstein in the original German, not Captain Underpants in dumb old English. Someone who could keep up with her. Someone who'd already read the dictionary, and didn't have to be ordered and threatened and coaxed to do so.

Someone completely not like me.

"Think about it," Alex said simply. He got off the table and walked past me towards the door. I didn't move, staring unseeingly at the spot he had just vacated. I heard him pause at the door.

"I'm sorry, man," he said, and he genuinely did sound sorry (not that I felt the need to forgive him). "I didn't mean to make you unhappy or anything. I'm just trying to get you to think about Quinn's happiness here."

Because Quinn's happiness was what mattered most, right? So what made Quinn happy? I had thought that I did…Did I still think that? Could one conversation really change the way I thought about our whole relationship? And why the heck was I using so many question marks?

Alex had been gone long before I could pull myself together enough to drag myself out of the room. I felt so…confused. Very, very confused.

To be honest, I'd never had much of a problem of doubting myself before. I'd never really contemplated that I might not be good enough for something. It was more like things not being good enough for me.

Sure, even I knew I wasn't perfect. I may be rich and good looking, but I'm not the most brilliant person you'll ever come across. But I'd always been okay with that. And, besides those few months at the beginning, I'd always thought that Quinn was okay with it, too.

But maybe she had a reason to be embarrassed of me.

God, this whole thing was just stupid. As I walked back to the lounge, I decided just to forget about it. Which turned out to be easier said than done.

I entered the lounge to see Quinn reading a magazine on the couch. Pushing all thoughts of the recent conversation I'd just had with Alex out of my mind, I walked over and took a seat next to her, depositing her weighty books on the coffee table.

"Hey," I said. "Whatcha reading?"

She glanced up, smiled at me, and looked back down at her magazine. "Scientific Weekly," she told me. "It's this article on iron-based superconductors that still work above liquid-helium temperatures. I guess they're thinking that this will make the spin fluctuations that glue together cuprate electrons easier to research…"

"Oh." I tried to understand, I really did, but the truth is I had no freaking clue what she was saying. Super-what nows? And all I could think of was how dumb I was for not knowing.

She really was a genius. And I'm sure there were people out there who would be more than happy to discourse at length with her over spin fluctuations. Meanwhile, the only thing I could discuss at length with any intelligence whatsoever was the latest plot of Captain Underpants, and the correct way to make a football pass.

The seed of doubt had been planted. And I was guessing it wouldn't do anything but continue to grow.