Page 2 of The Equation of Us
Dean’s eyes stay locked on mine. He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t smirk. Just looks. Steady. Intense.
Suddenly, I’m too warm. The tutoring center is quiet, half-lit by the soft flicker of fluorescent bulbs, and I’m acutely aware of how small this room is. How big he is. How sharp his jaw looks when he clenches it.
I shouldn’t notice.
I don’twantto notice.
“Let’s just focus,” I say, my throat tighter than it should be.
He nods once. “You’re the boss.”
It’s meant to be harmless. Light. Maybe even a little sarcastic.
But the way he says it?
It lingers.
My mind flashes to a conversation I overheard last week.
I hadn’t been eavesdropping.
Not intentionally.
It’s just that when you hear a name you recognize in a public café, and you’re seated ten feet away with a clear line of sight to their table… your brain kind of auto-tunes in.
I had been in the corner of The Grind for two hours, highlighting my neurochem notes, when I heard it—Dean’s name, from two girls I vaguely recognized from the biology department.
The taller one leaned forward, voice low but perfectly audible in the afternoon lull. “I’m telling you, Dean Carter is just…intensein bed. Like, too much. Always giving orders, always in charge.”
Her friend giggled. “That sounds hot, though.”
The first girl hesitated. Then said something I didn’t catch.
“Did you actually hook up with him?” her friend asked, eyes wide.
“God, no. Megan from my microbio lab did, before he started dating Daphne. Said it was the best and most intimidating sex ofher life.” She lowered her voice further. “And I swear to God, she said he’snot just big—he’s, how is that supposed to fitbig.”
Her friend nearly choked on her coffee. “Maybe that’s why he’s so quiet. Man’s got enough going on.”
They dissolved into giggles, and I forced myself back to my notes, my face burning. I hadn’t meant to hear it. I certainly hadn’t meant to file it away in my brain where it would inevitably resurface at the most inappropriate moments.
But now it’s there, sandwiched between biostatistics formulas and my grocery list, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t unhear it.
I take a breath and pull myself back to center.Focus, Nora.People like me—girls who come from nothing, who can’t afford mistakes, who claw their way into the room—we don’t get to slip. We don’t get second chances. So I make plans. I follow them. I measure everything: tasks, variables, time spent on each goal.
Because if I control all the variables, nothing can fall apart. I’m here to graduate at the top of my class, secure a funded slot in the university’s neurobehavioral research lab, and get into a Tier 1 grad program. That’s it. That’s the plan. Whatever’s going on between Dean and Daphne? That’s noise.
I review the assignment structure and flag the sections where his logic faltered.
He listens. Doesn’t argue. His brow furrows in a way that tells me he’s really thinking—not just pretending to care until the session ends.
He’s sharp. I’ve always known that. He understands systems, patterns, bodies in motion. What he doesn’t grasp is people. Or maybe he just doesn’t try.
When we finish the review, I sit back. “You’re capable of more than this.”
Dean meets my eyes, and something about his expression changes. It’s subtle, like a muscle twitch. “You sure?”
I frown. “That wasn’t a compliment.”
