Chapter 2
The guy's face flushed a deep, humiliating crimson. He shot me a venomous glare before whipping back around to face the front.
Right then, the math teacher walked in.
The guy in front of me immediately shot his hand into the air. "Mr. Harris! The new girl was just bragging about how incredibly easy this class is.
"Why don't you put some of your hardest problems on the board so she can show off for us?"
After finishing his sentence, he threw a smug, challenging smirk over his shoulder at me.
I set my pen down and looked up at the board.
[Fine by me.]
[I have been working on a new mathematical model lately anyway. I could use some basic arithmetic to warm up.]
The math teacher adjusted his glasses, letting his gaze linger on me for a second before turning to the chalkboard. He wrote out a brutally complex multi-layered function.
"This one is pretty tough since it combines advanced concepts from the state math competition." He paused. "As far as I know, there are three classic ways to solve it."
Dead silence hit the room. Most of the class was completely lost just staring at the equation.
Emma frowned slightly in deep thought. A moment later, she gracefully raised her hand and smoothly rattled off a clever solution using geometric auxiliary lines.
The teacher nodded in approval.
Shaun stood up right after her, calmly laying out the second method.
His logic was so razor-sharp that a quiet murmur of amazement rippled through the room.
"Didn't he say there were three ways?" The guy in front of me turned around and gave me a sideways glance. "Halle, why don't you go up and give it a shot?"
Every pair of eyes in the room zeroed in on me, fully expecting a trainwreck.
I glanced up at the board and kept my voice completely flat. "That problem is unsolvable."
"There's no solution to this problem."
The entire class burst into laughter the second the words left my mouth.
"Did I hear that right? What was she acting so smug for? I thought she was actually a prodigy."
"Right? Total airhead pretending to be a genius."
[The variables in the prompt are completely wrong.]
[Based on those numbers, that geometric figure can't even close in a three-dimensional space. It's a busted equation.]
[Testing students with a flawed problem just proves his teaching credentials are a joke.]
The room fell dead silent in a heartbeat as everyone's heads whipped back toward the board.
The math teacher's face dropped. He frantically started recalculating.
A few seconds later, sweating visibly, he awkwardly grabbed an eraser. "Uh... that was an oversight on my part. The numbers are definitely off. Let me just fix that."
He clumsily scrambled to change one of the parameters.
You could hear a pin drop. The kids who had just been mocking me now had faces burning bright red.
Emma and Shaun looked incredibly uncomfortable.
It didn't matter how brilliant their solutions were if they had just solved a fundamentally broken problem.
After the final bell rang, I packed up the scattered mess of school supplies on my desk and headed out.
"Halle," Shaun called out to me at the school gates.
His eyes were full of mixed emotions. "How did you spot the error in that equation with just one glance today?"
I looked at him, frowning.
[How could you not see such an obvious dimensional conflict?]
[Anyone with half a brain could figure that out. And he actually has the nerve to ask me?]
Shaun's usually arrogant expression totally cracked.
He stood frozen in place, watching me walk away, seriously questioning his own IQ for the very first time.
*****
The moment I stepped through the front door, a heavy and suffocating tension hit me right in the face.
My dad slammed his newspaper down on the table and glared at me. "I heard you were quite the show-off at school today.
"Making a massive scene the second you get back. Do you not care about the Cobb family reputation at all?"
My stepmom Lilian Cobb sat nearby, peeling an apple without even bothering to look up. "Halle, the Cobbs have always kept a low profile.
"You grew up on the outside so there are things you don't understand. But you should at least learn to watch your mouth. Stop stirring up trouble the minute you arrive."
[Low profile?]
[Like embezzling corporate funds and cooking the books kind of low profile?]
[The massive financial black hole at Cobb Enterprises is about to blow up in your faces, yet you have the free time to worry about me being too flashy?]
The smug composure on both their faces shattered instantly.
My dad shot up from his chair and pointed a trembling finger right at me. "What kind of garbage are you spouting?"
[Whether it's garbage or not, why don't you just go check the CFO's offshore bank accounts and find out?]
The paring knife dropped from Lilian's hand and clattered against her plate.
She grabbed my furious dad by the arm. When she looked at me again, her eyes were swimming with absolute panic.
"Honey," she whispered. "Maybe we really should have someone look into it."
My dad glared daggers at me. He turned around, walked over to the window, and started making a hushed phone call.
By dinnertime, the house was fully lit, but the lights did nothing to warm up the freezing atmosphere.
The dining table was loaded with a gourmet spread, and an extravagant birthday cake sat dead center.
"Eat up, Emma. You're the birthday girl today." My dad stood up and personally served her some food, his face beaming with fatherly love.
The whole family sat closely around her. They smiled, sang Happy Birthday, and handed over presents.
It looked exactly like a picture-perfect family.
I looked down and turned off my phone screen, hiding the automated birthday text I had just received.
Today was my birthday too.
Just then, Emma let out a sudden yelp. Her hand slipped, sending an entire bowl of boiling hot soup flying right at me.
I instinctively threw my arm up to block it. Most of the scalding liquid splashed across my skin, sending a sharp wave of pain shooting through me.
"Halle! I am so sorry!" Emma shot up from her chair in a panic and immediately tried to wipe my arm, her eyes already tearing up. "I was just trying to serve you some soup."