out.”
As soon as I erased her message,
Gretchen’s started playing.
“Ryan, we need to talk …”
Deleting the message, I threw the
phone on the bed. The last thing I needed was to talk to Gretchen. The two of
us had been a mistake. On paper she looked good to my parents, but at some
point I had woken up and realized that their approval didn’t matter as much as
the potential for a fucked up marriage that would have ended in a tragedy of
Shakespearean proportions. She had wanted me to be someone else. Someone who didn’t exist. She had thought our life was going
to be a fairy tale, and it had been easy to tell when she had started planning
the wedding that she would have ended up disappointed in reality.
The last thing I needed was
another person to be disappointed in me. During high school I had insisted on
going to public school, something my mother had found inappropriate . She would have preferred all-boys, Catholic,
private. It had been my first act of rebellion, not the last. The day I had
arrived home in the back of a squad car for fighting, she had called it a
disgrace.
It hadn’t made any difference that
I hadn’t started the fight. My crime had been that I won. The dick from the
football team who had started it ended up with a busted nose and his arm in a
cast. To this day, I’d like to think he regretted calling me a rich faggot and
then charging headlong into me after I had calmly pointed out that he was the
one who enjoyed tackling other guys. Not that I would have had a problem if he
had been into guys. My problem had
been—and always would be—shitheads who thought they could terrorize
everyone around them. Still, in my mother’s eyes, I had been the fuck-up.
When I had announced that I was
going back for my doctorate, it had just pissed everyone off. Of course, no
university had wanted to take me by the time I finally applied. Too old. It didn’t matter what my GPA had been in undergrad.
The study of mathematics was a young man’s pursuit. Or at least everyone in the field thought it was. Ironically,
Professor Robertson had a quote from G. H. Hardy’s memoir tacked to his
corkboard: “ No mathematician should ever
allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science,
is a young man’s game. ”
But I hadn’t gone back to school
for glory. I just wanted to study something I found interesting before inevitably returning to the family trade. The important
part had been doing something for myself before it was too late. Maybe that was
why Alex Reed’s story had struck me. Only eighteen and she was deciding her
fate based on an overbearing mother and a TV show. And then there was me, her
Calculus TA, who had nearly deflowered her. That should turn her off to math
forever.
Still, I couldn’t deny it. I was
looking forward to Tuesday night’s lecture. If I had really wanted, I could
have gone over to Mercer and stood at the door, waiting for her to come out.
But then I would have deserved—even more than her stalker did—to be
in a jail cell.
I ignored Gretchen’s message and
sent a text to my mother, smiling as I sent it. She hated texting. Then I went
to the kitchen and got some milk and cold cereal. No point to putting on a show
without anyone to impress. The thought made me curse. Was that what I had been
trying to do? Impress the pretty little freshman? You’re one sick fuck, Bennett , I thought miserably. Before it got
completely dark out, I took Finn out to the park. After that, the rest of the
night and most of Tuesday dragged. This feeling wasn’t going away—the
near desperation to see Alex Reed again. I couldn’t remember the last time I
had been this fucked up over a girl.
When I headed over to my
infinitesimal office about twenty minutes before lecture, Robertson stopped by,
which meant I couldn’t escape. I ended up listening to him pontificate for the
entire walk over to the 1500 building. The undergrads called 1500 the prison . And it
As soon as I erased her message,
Gretchen’s started playing.
“Ryan, we need to talk …”
Deleting the message, I threw the
phone on the bed. The last thing I needed was to talk to Gretchen. The two of
us had been a mistake. On paper she looked good to my parents, but at some
point I had woken up and realized that their approval didn’t matter as much as
the potential for a fucked up marriage that would have ended in a tragedy of
Shakespearean proportions. She had wanted me to be someone else. Someone who didn’t exist. She had thought our life was going
to be a fairy tale, and it had been easy to tell when she had started planning
the wedding that she would have ended up disappointed in reality.
The last thing I needed was
another person to be disappointed in me. During high school I had insisted on
going to public school, something my mother had found inappropriate . She would have preferred all-boys, Catholic,
private. It had been my first act of rebellion, not the last. The day I had
arrived home in the back of a squad car for fighting, she had called it a
disgrace.
It hadn’t made any difference that
I hadn’t started the fight. My crime had been that I won. The dick from the
football team who had started it ended up with a busted nose and his arm in a
cast. To this day, I’d like to think he regretted calling me a rich faggot and
then charging headlong into me after I had calmly pointed out that he was the
one who enjoyed tackling other guys. Not that I would have had a problem if he
had been into guys. My problem had
been—and always would be—shitheads who thought they could terrorize
everyone around them. Still, in my mother’s eyes, I had been the fuck-up.
When I had announced that I was
going back for my doctorate, it had just pissed everyone off. Of course, no
university had wanted to take me by the time I finally applied. Too old. It didn’t matter what my GPA had been in undergrad.
The study of mathematics was a young man’s pursuit. Or at least everyone in the field thought it was. Ironically,
Professor Robertson had a quote from G. H. Hardy’s memoir tacked to his
corkboard: “ No mathematician should ever
allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science,
is a young man’s game. ”
But I hadn’t gone back to school
for glory. I just wanted to study something I found interesting before inevitably returning to the family trade. The important
part had been doing something for myself before it was too late. Maybe that was
why Alex Reed’s story had struck me. Only eighteen and she was deciding her
fate based on an overbearing mother and a TV show. And then there was me, her
Calculus TA, who had nearly deflowered her. That should turn her off to math
forever.
Still, I couldn’t deny it. I was
looking forward to Tuesday night’s lecture. If I had really wanted, I could
have gone over to Mercer and stood at the door, waiting for her to come out.
But then I would have deserved—even more than her stalker did—to be
in a jail cell.
I ignored Gretchen’s message and
sent a text to my mother, smiling as I sent it. She hated texting. Then I went
to the kitchen and got some milk and cold cereal. No point to putting on a show
without anyone to impress. The thought made me curse. Was that what I had been
trying to do? Impress the pretty little freshman? You’re one sick fuck, Bennett , I thought miserably. Before it got
completely dark out, I took Finn out to the park. After that, the rest of the
night and most of Tuesday dragged. This feeling wasn’t going away—the
near desperation to see Alex Reed again. I couldn’t remember the last time I
had been this fucked up over a girl.
When I headed over to my
infinitesimal office about twenty minutes before lecture, Robertson stopped by,
which meant I couldn’t escape. I ended up listening to him pontificate for the
entire walk over to the 1500 building. The undergrads called 1500 the prison . And it
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