“I’m serious,” Cintia says, lowering her voice to a whisper. “We all felt you made those equations seem so easy. You always got in the zone so quickly. It was scary. In a good way, I mean. I’ve always wanted to ask you how you managed to just...shut everyone and everything out and focus on the equations when you were on stage.”

I lean back in my chair, thinking about how numb I felt during those competitions, even though Mom was in the audience watching me. They made me feel fake, like pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I craved Mom’s smile in the end, when they announced me as the reigning champion. But, getting the work done felt like...

Like one step closer to going into economics.

If I continue examining how I felt during those contests, I know I’ll only complicate my mission to finish my college application today even more. So I change the subject. “Are you going to compete this year?”

Cintia perks up in her chair, looking like I just announced a bear is about to sneak up behind her. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She turns to the application in front of her. “I thought if I looked at the form one more time today, I’d know the answer.”

I remember how uneasy she was the other day at the club and all the mathematics textbooks she was carrying in her backpack. “Wait, is this what you were overthinking?”

She shoots me a guilty look. “Yeah.”

She’s top of her class. I see the way students go to her for tutoring. I think she’d be great at the regionals. “You don’t want to compete?” I ask, looking from the screen to her, the way she moves the cursor to the application form like she wants to take the first step, but can’t.

“I do!” she says, her voice rising, and the librarian says if we’re loud one more time, she’s totally kicking us out. “And I don’t,” Cintia explains in a whisper. “I’m not a huge fan of standing up on a stage like that, everyone looking at me while they project my work on a giant screen. Just the thought of people watching me develop solutions makes me queasy.” She shudders. “I thought I could finally muster the courage this year, but I can’t. And the worst part is I told my parents I would. Now I feel like I just...disappointed them. I didn’t do any of the things I said I would. I didn’t introduce myself to Professora Pimentel, even though I heard she preps students for the regionals. I didn’t even join the mathematics club. Instead, I joined the cooking club.”

I frown. “Why the cooking club in particular?”