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have been until now, but I always got A’s and anyway they were focused on JT. Nobody ever brought home a 78 around here before.
    What if they punish me?
    What if they say,
Maybe if you spent a little more time focusing on your schoolwork and a little less time socializing . . .
    Or what if they don’t? What if they’re just like,
Oh, well, that’s fine. Maybe you’re just a C student and that’s all we can expect from you.
    What if they’re actually proud of a 78, from me?
    I shut my computer and turned off my phone. The test paper’s big scrawled red 78 glared at me. I slipped it under the textbook, which I opened up to chapter four, determined to cram some of this stuff into my brain. I was good at math last year and every year before this. No reason I should suddenly fail it now. I just have to buckle down, maybe do the homework.
    After about five minutes of staring at the page without registering anything, I shut the textbook and opened my computer. There have to be like video tutorials online to help you make sense out of solving quadratic equations. What the heck even is a quadratic equation?
    When I looked up, more than an hour had passed and Dad was calling me down for dinner. I hadn’t learned any math but I had seen a bunch of hilarious cat videos.
    I dashed down the stairs. As I was putting out the plates and silverware, Mom and Dad were doing their final stirs of the stuff on the stove and discussing current events. Dad said something about Syria. Mom made a point that included the words
economics of the region
. Dad agreed.
    Mom popped open a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, which she carried over to the table. Dad brought the steaming bowl of pasta with some sauce on it that smelled amazing.
    I love to eat. I get happy just picking up a fork.
    We sat at the table, with its lost-tooth gap where JT should’ve been. They kept talking about Syria or the economy or whatever it was they were discussing. I ate. It was delicious.
    â€œHow was school today?” Dad asked. They both held their forks in midair and looked at me.
    â€œOkay,” I said, moving my eyes from one to the other. “What?”
    â€œHow are your classes going?” Mom asked. Fork still at half-mast.
    I looked over at the seat where JT wasn’t and wished for him to materialize. No luck.
    â€œYou liking English?” she asked, lowering her fork, still holding its pile of pasta, to her plate.
    â€œYeah. Ms. Fenton is great,” I said. “Really sarcastic and funny.”
    â€œAnd how about math?” Dad asked. He made a big thing of refolding his napkin on his lap. Fine. I plopped my napkin onto my lap, too. “Math going well this year?”
    â€œI don’t love Ms. Davidson, honestly.”
    â€œOkay,” Dad said. “But how are you doing in the class?”
    Usually JT would be the one talking about his classes and I’d be free to just eat in peace or maybe mock him. Or, like, fall out of my chair.
    â€œOkay, I guess,” I said. I choked a little on a hunk of bread. I like to just eat while I’m eating.
    â€œIt’s interesting—we ask you about your classes and you tell us your feelings about the teachers,” Dad said.
    I took some more bread and loaded it up with butter.
    â€œI loved algebra,” Mom said.
    â€œI think my favorite thing about algebra is the definition,” Dad said.
    â€œWhat definition?” Mom asked.
    Dad rubbed his forehead where the hair isn’t anymore, the way he does when he gets excited about a topic. His glasses, as always, toppled off. “The word
algebra
means the reunion of broken parts.”
    â€œReally?” Mom asked. “That’s so interesting. Don’t you think, Clay?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Sure.”
    Dad smiled at me. “It comes from the Arabic words for
reunion . . 
.”
    â€œAnd
of broken parts
?” I asked.