Page 7 of Gingers Can Do Maths

“No, you’re leaving for Ennox.”

“Sin—”

“Hortace has a focus on innovation and teamwork. Those are my strong suits.”

“So’s tech and robotics.”

She shakes her head again sadly. “That exam’s just the beginning, and I'm already at the end. You don't understand how hard it is for me. I could barely get through it. How am I supposed to make it through an entire three years? I can’t keep relying on you as a crutch.”

“I’ll be your crutch. I’ll be whatever the fuck you need—”

“But I don’t want you to be!” Those dark eyes finally fly to mine, and they're brimming with unshed tears.

That isn't fair.

She isn't the one who gets to cry.

“How can you be great, advance, when you’re stuck helping me? That aside, I don’t want to feel so crippled. I need to learn how to stand without you and so do you. We’re too codependent.”

Is this what this is really about? Does she need space from me to breathe? Am I smothering her?

And yet, without her, I feel like I’m suffocating.

I scoot further away, giving her even more space to breathe while I slowly lose oxygen.

She gazes at the lack of contact and begins chewing her lip again. “I'm sorry, Han. I can't handle the stress of it. It's just too hard and I'm finally able to admit it.”

My organs that have liquified suddenly begin to harden, turning to steel. “So you’re taking the easy way out?”

Her eyes darken, her eyebrows meeting. “No. I just don’t think it’s good for me mentally long term. And I have to do what's right for me, right?”

And what about us?

There is no us.

There’s just me and what I thought was reality. Clearly, I’d been living in la la land.

“If you felt this stressed, why did you take the exam at all? Why did you make mewastemonths with you on video calls, after school, in my bed, and in yours when I'd creep into your room to do the last thing our parents would expect if we were caught? Maths drill after drill. Equation after equation? Formula after formula? What was the point, if the entire time you thought I could be out doing somethinggreat? Something more meaningful than being your crutch?”

A fat tear rolls down her cheek and I know it's from the brashness in my tone. One I'd never used on her before.

It only makes me angrier.

What the hell did she have to cry about? She's getting what she wants. The fuck away from me.

“I didn’t realise that until I’d sat the exam. I’ve been feeling this pressure for weeks afterwards—”

“And you’re just telling me now? If I hadn’t asked, when would you have told me, Roisin?”

She flinches at her full name.

“At the end of summer when you bought your Hortace uniform instead of Ennox's?”

“Han—”

“When I boarded the train and you weren’t there?”

“Han—”

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