Halfway to finding the fourth X, her mom lightly touched her knuckles. “Honey, honey, whoa,” she said. “Relax.”

“I can’t,” Marianne said. “It’s math.”

“What’s so unnerving about it? Can you explain it, or—” Marianne’s mom searched Marianne’s face like perhaps if she looked hard enough she could uncover the problem.

Would her mom understand if she brought up the time toward the end of fifth grade when Mr. Thorne asked her for the answer to a math problem and Elliott Roth burst out, “Come on, this is a waste of time!”?

How did you explain that to someone who had always found it all so easy?

“Whatever you’re thinking,” her mom said, her palms still on the tops of Marianne’s fists, “I want you to try a technique with me. Don’t fight away all those thoughts, okay? Just say hello to them, and then goodbye. Watch them float away. You could picture them attached to kites or balloons or—”

“How about hot-air balloons?” Marianne liked this. This was way more interesting than math.

“Breathe with me first…” her mom said, and she talked her through it again.

Elliott Roth came into Marianne’s head. She said hello, then she said goodbye to him as he floated off in a hot-air balloon. He came back again, but she waved him off every time. Goodbye, Elliott.

“Now.” Her mom picked up a pencil. “Let’s try it again, shall we?”

“Okay,” Marianne said.

And though her heart beat slower and her hands relaxed, Marianne knew that they could sit there and breathe and then go over worksheet after worksheet, fact after fact, chapter after chapter … But it was just a matter of time until her mom truly understood what Marianne was: deadweight.

Marianne and Skyla even had different lunch hours. At 10:30 A.M. Marianne headed to the cafeteria for the earliest lunch in the world.

“It’s obviously brunch,” Kylie Chen always said. “They should just call it brunch.”

Sometimes, if Marianne was lucky, she would catch Skyla as her group left and Skyla’s came in.

That day was a lucky one.

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

They kissed cheeks.

Marianne wanted to tell her about Quiz Quest, but she didn’t just want to be talking about herself all the time, so she tried to think of something to ask Skyla about her. “I didn’t ask—how did midterms go for you?”

Skyla hesitated and glanced at her friends, who continued on in without her. “I did okay. Pretty good.”

“Nice!” Marianne slapped her hand. “Mazel tov! So.” She leaned in toward Skyla for the big reveal. “I did it.” She blew a big bubble with her gum, and it popped against her lips.

Skyla clearly didn’t know what she meant.

“We’re going to the salad first!” Julie shouted to Skyla as their gang of friends disappeared into the cafeteria. “Hi, Marianne!”

Marianne waved. “I joined Quiz Quest,” she reminded her.

“Oh!” Skyla did a double take from her friends inside back to Marianne. “Wait, seriously?”

“Why is she getting the salad? Yeah, I’m serious. I’ve worked the whole thing out perfectly…” Marianne began.