The Fall Ball

3.Chase

I sat next to Tyler, and hastily unpacked my backpack. Our Statistics teacher, Mr. Smith, had a habit of giving us little to no time with his stern glares, urging us to straighten ourselves and get ready for statistics lesson—well, torture.

The moment Mr. Smith turned his back on the class to face the board, giving us a chance to discreetly check our phones or pass a note, I turned to Tyler, who was doodling over the Venn Diagrams in his notebook.

"Psst! Where were you and Kacey during lunch?" I hissed.

"We were running errands for Mr. Millers," he hissed back, still doodling.

Mr. Millers, our old history teacher, who walked with a cane often sent students running his errands so it wasn't unusual. Tyler and Kacey do share a History class together. If he had a thing with Kacey he'd surely tell me. Even if he was hiding it from me, I knew prying wasn't a good idea, so I let it slide.

"I heard Brent asked Della to the Fall Ball," Tyler suddenly whispered. I rolled my eyes inwardly.

"I know, dude. I saw," I replied coldly, still annoyed that Brent beat me to it.

"Did you know she turned him down?," Tyler whispered, making me shift in my seat.

"How do you know?" I asked, still whispering

Tyler glanced around to make sure Mr. Smith wasn't looking at us. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he leaned in a bit closer.

"Apparently it was a public—not so public proposal. He pulled out some paper flowers from his jacket or something and got on his knees in the school hallway." He added with a snort.

Just the sound of it made me cringe. I was glad I didn't stick around in the hallway to witness it. I know I'd never do something like that. It must have been so embarrassing for Della. Or not maybe she found it charming?

"She had said she's holding out for someone."

So she had not found it charming. And she's holding out for someone? That was not expected. Maybe she was still into me after all.

"You think it's me?"

"I didn't say that." Tyler snorted. "You're presumptuous, man."

Mr. Smith cleared his throat out loud, startling the two of us. We straightened up, pretending to be fully engaged in the probability lesson.

"Probability is a measure of the likelihood that a particular event will occur. It ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates an impossible event and 1 indicates a certain event," Mr. Smith went on. "Now, let's consider a simple example," He turned to the board scribbling a probability distribution on the board.

My mind went back to Della. She was holding out for someone. It could be me. Maybe she's interested in someone new? She could have anyone. But who? I did not see her with another guy recently.

I nudged Tyler again. "Psst! What's the probability of her holding out for me?"

Unfortunately the whisper came out too loud, reaching the ears of our teacher and probably the rest of the class.

"That—" Mr. Smith turned to face me, "would be a zero." He said with a deadpan delivery, making the class burst into laughter, leaving me red-faced.

I shot a quick apologetic glance at the teacher, who maintained a stern expression for a moment before cracking a small smile.

Tyler chucked, giving me an encouraging pat on the back as I groaned inwardly.

"Now, Chase, I appreciate the enthusiasm for real-world applications of probability, but let's keep our focus on the statistical concepts at hand," Mr. Smith said, his tone still laced with humor.

The class continued to chuckle as I sank a bit lower in my seat.