If there was ever a week that felt like it would swallow me whole, it was midterms week.
The halls buzzed with a kind of nervous energy that was impossible to ignore, students with books clutched to their chests, some whispering formulas under their breath, others pacing like they were walking toward their doom.
Taylor was one of them.
He slouched against the lockers beside mine, his hair a mess, a pencil sticking out of his hoodie pocket like a forgotten weapon. He groaned so dramatically that a few people down the hallway actually glanced at him.
“I’m going to flunk math,” he muttered, like it was already a fact written in stone. “Numbers hate me. They see me and they just… laugh.”
I zipped my bag closed and shot him a look. “Numbers don’t laugh, Taylor.”
“They laugh at me,” he ins
