Spell Broken

12 - Math and Magic

I make my way over to the table Neo sits at. It's a table farther from the entrance and sits right before the rows of shelves. He has his workbook open in front of him and his pencil hovers over it. Ready to write.

I pull a chair out. The sound pulls Neo's attention.

He smiles when he sees it's me. "Hey."

"Hello." I plop my bag down and sit in the chair.

"Ready to start?" He shifts in his chair.

I nod and pull out my workbook and a pencil.

I flip open to the lesson that I need the most work with. We both loom over the page. Neo walks me through the steps, telling me where to put the numbers and how to work with them. "It's like a dance," he says, slumping back in his chair.

"A dance?"

He nods. "You do half the work. Like setting the equation up and, if everything is placed right, the numbers do their own work."

I raise an eyebrow. "And how do they do that?"

"You put them in the calculator."

"How is that a dance?"

He's smirking. A sneaky grin on his face. But his gaze darts around the room, making him seem unsure of himself. "It just is. Isn't that what magic is like?"

I look away from him and at the doors to the library.

When he puts it like that, I guess it is. I call the magic forward, tell it the shape I want it to take and then it's just... there. At least in simple terms that's how it works.

"Yeah... it is." I turn back to him. "How'd you know?"

He shrugs and looks away. But it's quick and sharp. "Lucky guess." His voice comes out rough. "Ready for the next question?"

I nod.

We do the same thing. He walks me through it step by step.

The next few questions he lets me try by myself. But he hovers and watches me work. When I write something wrong he points it out. After a few questions I get to the point where he doesn't have to point anything out.

That's also when his demeanor changes.

He starts to fidget. First with tapping his pencil and then playing with his hoodies strings. Then, he can't stare at just one spot. He keeps looking over his shoulder or over my head or at the other students who are here.

It's annoying.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

He nods.

I sigh and turn back to my work.

When I look up again the clock above the door says it's four.

"Shoot," I say.

Neo jumps in his chair. "What?"

"I kept you from soccer practice."

He follows my gaze to the clock and laughs. "No you didn't."

"But Fox said you had to be there. That you had a big game." Does he not remember any of that? Why isn't he mad that I kept him?

He sighs and looks down. "I wasn't ready to tell anyone this yet, but... I'm taking a break from soccer."

"What? Why? You love soccer!"

He nods. "I do."

"Then why would Fox tell me differently?" I don't mean to ask the question out loud, but it slips out of my mouth.