Here’s the thing about emotions.

  They’re inefficient.

  Illogical. Loud. Unquantifiable.

  I’ve always preferred things with formulas. Cause and effect. If X, then Y. Simple.

  So naturally, I find myself mildly concerned when I start looking forward to tuition breaks, specifically to sit five feet away from a girl who thinks in sarcasm and looks like she hasn’t known peace since she was born.

  Her name is Veeah.

  And she might be a problem.

  Not in the traditional sense. She’s smart. Doesn’t talk much. Sits at the back, which I appreciate.

  But she has this habit of looking at me—not in a flirty way (God no), but in this weird, calculating, annoyingly knowing way. Like she’s piecing together a puzzle that hasn’t even told her what the picture is yet.

  And every time she catches me staring, she quirks one eyebrow, like she’s saying “Really? Again?”

  I find it deeply unsettling.

  It started small.

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  A passing comment she made when I was muttering to myself over a physics problem. She didn’t look up from her notebook, just said:

  “You’re overthinking the vector diagram again.”

  Which was ridiculous. I hadn’t even written it yet.

  I asked her how she knew.

  She just shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  Suspicious. I don’t believe in luck.

  Then there was the time she laughed out loud in the middle of a completely silent moment during class—right as I was mentally mocking Aaron for trying to flirt with our chem teacher.

  She swore it was because of something on her phone.

  But I wasn’t born yesterday.

  Today was worse.

  Because today, she sat next to me.

  Not directly next to me. One seat apart. But that’s still within danger proximity.

  She didn’t say anything for ten minutes. Just quietly tapped her pen against her notebook, stealing glances at my page like she already knew the answers.

  Then, out of nowhere, she leaned a little closer and said:

  “Hypothetically… if you found out other people had powers, what would you do?”

  She said it casually. Like she was asking for my opinion on shampoo.

  I blinked. “...Powers?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. You know. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Whatever weird nonsense.”

  I cleared my throat. “Well. Hypothetically... I'd say it’s unlikely. Scientifically unproven. And kind of insane.”

  Her eyes narrowed, just a bit. “Cool. Just checking.”

  She didn’t say anything else for the rest of the hour.

  But when she stood up to leave, I caught her smirking to herself.

  Like she knew something I didn’t.

  Now I’m home. Lying on my bed. Staring at the ceiling fan. Running calculations I can’t explain.

  There’s a 96% chance she was testing me. A 72% chance she suspects something. And a 100% chance that I’ve been thinking about that conversation for too long.

  Because here's the thing:

  I don’t have any powers.

  But I do know when something doesn’t add up.

  And Veeah?

  She’s the equation I can’t solve.

  Yet.