Keyframe

10 AM

"Now I'm caught up in the middle—
between a hard place that should be simple.
I've lost the words to say, but decided what's best for me."

- "10 AM," State Champs (2020)

Alejandro

"You know you're an actual cyborg, right?" Lily grumbles, her cheek pressed against her calculus textbook and her eyes closed. "What kind of absolute psychopath studies in the morning?"

"Me, obviously. I didn't know it was illegal to use your brain before noon."

I roll my eyes when she doesn't respond, obviously trying to fall back asleep on the Starbucks table. I woke her up after my run at 7:30 and left with her at 8:00, just like I have for the past two weeks that we've been studying together. But she never seems to get used to it, taking hours before she stops biting my head off with every sentence.

"Maní, it's ten in the morning. It's time to get over it," I say quietly, reaching over to knock on the back of her head. "Number fifteen?"

"Ugh. Fine."

She picks up her head in painstaking lethargy, propping it up on one hand and clenching her fingers in her short curls. There's another moment in which she hesitates, but, after another tiny groan, she picks up her pencil, glances at the textbook, and starts to write.

I watch her poke around on her calculator, my problem already done, before setting down my coffee to speak.

"What time did you go to sleep last night?"

"Mm—" she makes a noise, pencil still going, before giving me a non-answer that's just as telling as a real one. "'Night' is a...strong word."

"Lily," I groan in despair, wondering how long it'll be before she burns herself out for good. "Quit doing that to yourself."

"What? I had a ton of homework; we just work on different time schedules, that's all." She stops writing, looking at the book again as she circles her answer. "I got that it's conditionally convergent. You?"

I gaze down at my paper, shaking my head.

"Try again. It's divergent."

She narrows her eyes, looking back at her work like an inspector, before shaking her head as well.

"Nuh-uh, it's conditionally convergent. I'm sure."

"Do you want to check?"

I hand her my paper, not nearly as interested in the problem as I am in studying her dazed stare at the book. Although she's usually accurate in her problem-solving, I'm almost certainly in the right when we disagree.

It takes her a moment to compare our work before her face lights up.

"Look, you screwed up finding the limit. It's convergent."

She points out my mistake to me, and, not believing it, I look for myself and widen my eyes in horror. She's right.

"I'm right? I'm right!" she muses out loud, beaming and placing her hands on the sides of her head. I'm not a fan of being wrong, but I let her have her moment because I enjoy watching her rare state of happiness.

"Okay, okay, we've been studying for hours already." I start to gather my things, evacuating the situation. "That's enough math for a Saturday."

She does the same, looking up at me a few times as she zips her backpack.

"You're a sore loser. And the test is next Wednesday."

"I am not a sore loser. You should look in the mirror for that one." I stand and look down at the top of her head when she joins me. "And don't worry about the test. Even if you do that weird blanking thing, you'll have me."