I don't own The Breakfast Club

Enjoy!

Taking an advanced math class was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Brian liked the challenge and that he could show his parents that he could do it, a curse because no matter how much his head tried to understand the formulas, which he did, everything would meld together into a puddle on the chalkboard. Brian shut his eyes and couple of times to adjust to the functions that the teacher wrote, though it was hard to keep up with those sines and cosines.

Is cosine the opposite over hypotenuse? he thought and scratched the top of his head. Or is that sine? Damn it, why did I forget this? I'm at the top of the class! He didn't know what was happening to him. Usually, he was very relaxed in doing numerous trigonometry problems no matter how perplexing they were but he didn't know what was going on with him today. Come on, focus! You can do this in your sleep! he scolded himself. He moved his eyes on his paper and briefly shut them. That seemed to help a little bit, ease his thoughts before he went back to dissecting the formula.

Perhaps he had a rough time sleeping or a terrible morning. Brian put the blame on that for his lack of focus. If anyone got a maximum of two to three hours of sleep and their mother's anger on top of it, it would be astonishing that they would be able to focus. But he just had to, no matter how much his head hurt. He picked up his pencil and wrote across the paper that was littered with eraser shavings. No matter how much he tried to erase the wrong answers, there was some left over that he could see. He let out a slow breath when he finally answered the problem but he didn't feel too confident.

"Johnson." Brian's head immediately lifted as his eyes met with the teacher's across the room. Brian gulped for he knew that he was going to get called on for the answer and the last thing he needed was to have the teacher be disappointed in him. "You have the answer for us?" the teacher asked as he wiped his hands together from the excess chalk.

Brian looked from the teacher and over to his peers. All eyes were on him and yet, that faith that he had in himself wasn't making the situation any better. Just get it over with he thought to himself. Who cares if it's the wrong answer?...Uh, your mom and dad...shut up conscience! Man, his conscience could be so annoying! "Th-The answer is the square root of two."

He didn't know how long the silence in the classroom dragged. A second, a minute, an hour? No matter how long it was, Brian wanted it to be over. It's the wrong answer, I just know it!

"Very good," the teacher answered to Brian's surprise with a proud smile on his lips. He turned around and wrote the answer on the board and Brian let out a sigh of relief.

He had just gotten lucky with that one. He didn't know how and he wasn't going to question it. Brian was aware that many of his classmates in various classes held a misconception about him. Just because he was able to get straight As in just about everything did not always mean that he was gifted in that subject. There were certain subjects that were harder than others, so he had to make time for those ones the most. One of those classes that had turned out to be very challenging was Shops class. Brian had considered taking that class, thinking that it would be easy. It had turned out to be interesting at first. There were things that Brian knew he could learn and use them on a daily basis outside of school, when he would be living independently from his parents.

However, there was this one thing that was giving him a tough time. That damned elephant lamp that he couldn't get to work. Brian had tried to put his math skills to use in that class but no matter what he did, he just couldn't get that light to shine. He was no Thomas Edison, but why did it work so well for this American inventor and not a high school student like Brian Johnson? He only hoped that the teacher would at least be lenient and give him points for his effort. That ceramic elephant didn't even look like an elephant at all either, but he had tried his best. Reminding himself of the schedule again, he had Shops class as his last period. A good class to end the day if you enjoyed, but Brian dreaded it.

"Before you leave," the teacher spoke up as he took a pile of papers in his hands, "I have graded your exams. There will be a test next week on what we have covered in class." That earned him a couple of moans and groans, but this was an advanced course and weekly tests were common. The teacher was used to the moans and groans of his students that at this point of his career, it did not faze him whatsoever. He handed back the exams to each student.

Once the teacher approached Brian's desk, Brian held his breath. That nightmare that he had, he didn't know whether it was going to come true at this very second. He wished he could hide behind that piece of paper on his desk to avoid looking at the sudden grade that was upon him.

"Good job, as always," the teacher said and presented to Brian a perfect score that had resulted into an A+.

Oh, thank you! Brian didn't know who he was thanking. His brain? The Math Gods? Who cares? He could finally stop worrying about this test and worry about the next one in the coming week. His only way of celebrating his victory was to just study and knowing how much he had internally suffered from this, he was going to study as hard as possible to get another perfect score.