Four Of A Kind - Chapter 132: [3.34] Plus C
Chapter 132: [3.34] Plus C
As I navigated the hallway jungle of Hartwell Academy between fourth and fifth period, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was probably Iris asking for dinner requests or Felix wanting to share the details of his weekend plans that I absolutely didn’t need to know. I ignored it.
My feet carried me toward the library with the weary determination of someone walking to their own execution. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind helping Harlow with calculus. The kid was genuinely nice, which made her a unicorn among billionaires. But there was something about her particular brand of energy that left me feeling like I’d run a marathon while being pelted with glitter and motivational quotes.
Approaching the library doors, I spotted her immediately. Hard to miss, really. While most students hunched over their phones or dragged themselves between classes with the enthusiasm of death row inmates, Harlow bounced on her toes near the entrance. Her wine-red hair was tied in twin tails with actual star-shaped clips today, and she clutched what appeared to be an entire bakery’s worth of pastries wrapped in pink paper.
She spotted me and her face lit up like I was her favorite person in the universe rather than her sister’s reluctant tutor.
“ISAIAH!” she shouted, drawing looks from passing students. “I brought snacks! And my textbook! And I color-coded all my notes last night! I stayed up until two in the morning but it was totally worth it because now everything makes sense! Well, not the math, the math still doesn’t make sense, but at least my notes are pretty now!”
Mrs. Chen, the librarian, peered over her glasses at Harlow’s volume level. I grabbed Harlow’s elbow and steered her inside before we got banned.
“Inside voice,” I reminded her.
“Sorry,” she whispered dramatically, though her whisper was still louder than most people’s normal speaking voice. “I’m just excited! No one’s ever offered to help me with calculus before. Usually I have to figure stuff out on my own because everyone’s so busy with their own things, and Vivienne tried once but she got frustrated when I didn’t understand derivatives right away, and Cassidy just laughed at me, and Sabrina said she’d help but then she got distracted by a book and forgot I existed.”
I led her toward the back corner where I usually studied, a quiet nook partially hidden behind the reference section. There was a small table with two chairs, perfect for tutoring without too many distractions.
“First rule of studying,” I said as we sat down. “No distractions.”
Harlow nodded seriously, then immediately opened her bag of pastries. “I got us pain au chocolat from this amazing bakery near our house! The baker trained in Paris for seven years and he only makes fifty pastries per day and they sell out in like twenty minutes but Mrs. Tanaka knows him so she always saves some for us and they’re SO GOOD.”
She pushed a pastry wrapped in parchment paper toward me. The smell hit me immediately—butter and chocolate and everything that made life worth living. My stomach growled traitorously.
“Second rule of studying,” I said, unwrapping the pastry. “Sustenance is important.”
Harlow beamed.
“Okay, so,” I said through a mouthful of flaky, chocolatey heaven, “show me what you’re struggling with.”
Harlow pulled out her calculus textbook, which was covered in what appeared to be hand-drawn hearts, stars, and anime characters. She flipped it open to reveal pages absolutely littered with sticky notes in various colors, highlighting in multiple shades, and notes in the margins that looked like they were written in some kind of code. There was barely any original text visible under all her additions.
“I don’t understand integrals at all,” she said. “Like, I get that they’re the opposite of derivatives, kind of like how subtraction is the opposite of addition, but whenever I try to solve a problem, I get stuck and my brain just starts thinking about other things, like how pretty the sky is or what I’m going to wear to the fall festival or whether Cassidy remembered to eat lunch because sometimes she forgets when she’s having a bad day.”
I studied her notes more carefully. Among the doodles and highlighting were actually some pretty solid concepts. She’d drawn little diagrams to explain certain principles, created mnemonics in the margins, and even worked through a few problems step by step. But about halfway through each problem, her work would trail off, often ending with a question mark or “ask someone???”
“Can you try solving one right now?” I asked. “Let me see your process.”
Harlow nodded, pulling out a piece of pink graph paper and a set of glitter pens. “Okay, so if the problem is to find the integral of 3x² + 2x, I know that I need to… um…”
She tapped her pen against the paper, starting to write something, then stopping. “I need to go up a power, right? So x² becomes x³, and then… divide by the new power? So it’s x³/3?”
“That’s right,” I encouraged. “And the 2x part?”
“That would be… 2x²/2, which simplifies to just x².”
“Perfect. So the whole answer is?”
“x³/3 + x² + C.” She wrote it down neatly, then added a tiny star at the end for good measure. “I didn’t forget the constant of integration! That’s the part I always used to miss and Vivienne would get so mad.”
“You’re actually pretty good at this,” I observed. “So what’s the issue?”
“I don’t know, I just—” Her phone buzzed, and she immediately reached for it, checking the screen. “Oh! That’s the Fashion Club group chat. We’re trying to decide on the theme for the winter showcase.”
She started typing rapidly, completely forgetting our conversation. I watched, curious to see how long it would take her to remember I was sitting across from her.
Two minutes and approximately thirty text messages later, she looked up with a guilty start.
“I’m so sorry! I totally got distracted! Where were we?”
“Integrals,” I reminded her. “You were explaining what the issue is.”
“Right! So I understand the basic concept, I think, but when I try to do homework or study for tests, I get these texts from friends who need help with costume designs, or Vivienne sends me a schedule update about a photoshoot, or I remember I promised to help a freshman with their makeup for the school play, and before I know it, three hours have gone by and I haven’t done any calculus at all.”
As if to prove her point, her phone buzzed again. She glanced at it, fingers twitching toward the screen, but then forced herself to turn it face-down on the table.
“See what I mean? It’s like I physically can’t ignore people who need me.”
I considered this. “Have you tried putting your phone in airplane mode when you study?”
She looked at me like I’d suggested she cut off her arm. “But what if someone needs me?”
“They can wait an hour.”
“But what if it’s an emergency?”
“Is fashion club choosing between blue or pink for the winter showcase really an emergency?”
