Page 2 of Gingers Can Do Maths

He’d been relentlessly bullied for it until he found his haven amongst the tech kids and maths geniuses who idolised him and despised me. They’d built a fortress around him, and his confidence had soared. The only thing that hasn’t changed is his soft spot for me.

I brace for impact as his thin arms wrap around my waist, and his forehead bumps my breasts as he lifts me despite my constant protests every time he does. I’m a few centimetres taller than him, and he’s so willowy thin, I’m always afraid I’ll snap him in half.

I’m distractingly curvy or so I’d been told. I’ve been told everything about me is distracting, and I’m merely just existing. I’m just being myself in all matching pastels, and sparkly nails that draw looks of disgust every time I eat with Rohan and his friends. Like my attire means I’m unserious.

Unworthy.

Silly.

Again, maybe they’re right.

Today I don’t push Rohan away in an attempt to get him to put me down before I break his spine. Not physically anyway. I’m already about to do that emotionally with my letter to Hortace.

If I tell Han that I didn’t get into Ennox, there's no question that he won't go. Not for year ten anyway.

He’d retake the entrance exam next year with me. I know because he didanythingto be with me, right down to faking stomach and headaches whenever I skipped a class to go to the nurses' office with bad period cramps. He’d pretend to not want some of my tea only to drink half of it anyway and I’d have to pry his fingers off my hot water bottle that he constantly jiggled as we watched the nurse's favourite telenovelas.

There’s no way he’d go an entire year without me if he had the choice.

He'd spend another year trying to cram equations into my brain that just won't stick there. And then, what if I failed again? What if I wasted his time again? His potential for an entire year just for the same outcome?

I gaze at the dingy walls of our underfunded public school now over his head as my toes dangle a centimetre off the ground. Han’s too good for this place. Even the advanced work that's like quantum physics but in Mandarin to me is like grade-five work to Rohan. He says he's always been biding his time for Ennox which starts at year ten, but I know it's more than that because there are better public schools in our area.

It's me.

If he skips Ennox for another year, there'll be no more lying to myself about why he's staying and once again, everyone would be right. I’d be holding him back.

I can't hold him back anymore, and after today, I can't hold on at all.

So for the very last time, I allow myself to revel in the semi-wet kiss he places on my cheek and in his warm breath that smells like his favourite caramel candy he munched on between classes. I made whole trays of them for him every month.

I take in the sun lighting up his orange hair like a halo of fire, and his teal eyes that are like the prettiest lagoons I’ve ever had the pleasure to drown in.

I trace every freckle on his cheek, right down to the one that dots the upper corner of his full lips. Then I find that little chip along the ridge on his bottom incisor.

Then, I fake my own smile as I gear up to show him my acceptance letter.

To Hortace.

Because that’s where I’m over the moon to go.

My dream school.

Or so I have to make him believe.

Han

There’s no getting around the fact that Roisin’s my Sin in every way possible.

Today she’s wrapped in mint green and against her milk chocolate skin; she looks like one of my favourite desserts.

She smells like dessert too as I wrap my arms around her waist and bury my face in her fluffy hair. It always smells like vanilla marshmallows and today’s no exception. As I lift her against me, her breasts nestle beneath my chin and I don’t miss the chance to coyly lean against their softness.

She’s so damn soft everywhere.

So damn perfect.

No one thinks I deserve her. Even I don’t think that I do. But it won’t stop me from having her. Devouring her.

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