A Golden Opportunity

Far Apart Fractions

Victor waited until he got back to his dorm room until he allowed himself to unroll the test that had been presented face down. He wasn't brave enough to go through the five stages of grief there in the classroom, surrounded by smiling faces who had found the first calculus exam to be simple as anything. It was supposed to be simple, as the first chapters in the book were merely re-teachings of the trigonometry that would offer the ground work for the calculus they would begin next week...and yet Victor found trigonometry hard as well. And geometry hard, if he was being honest. And algebra? Well, let's just say he was in the wrong field entirely. He was in the wrong field to be doing anything with his life except crying on his desk at two in the morning over a stupid sheet of notebook paper, one which he would have to redo as soon as his tears dried so as to hide the wrinkled parts where they had splashed down upon his hard work.
There seemed to be no comfort in that calculus class, not even one friendly face. When Victor had taken the class his freshman year he had at least been able to bond with those around him during their pain and suffering, but now that he was retaking it as a sophomore he felt like a giant among dwarves, like an adult among children. He could hardly connect with the freshmen, those who wanted to gossip about their roommate's high school boyfriends or ogle over the senior football players. It was astounding how much confidence these children came to school with, armed with being the coolest kid at their high schools. He should like them much more come the end of the semester, when the reality of college had set in and it slowly dawned that no one cared how many friends you had, or how much you drank at that Friday night party, or who you had a crush on. Grades mattered in college, grades and future and resumes. And right now Victor had neither the confidence of a freshman or the grades of a sophomore...nothing to show for his time at this damn university except a warning note from his academic councilor and his father's money in the President's pocket.
Victor arrived at his dorm in record time, having walked with the speed of terror, half expecting his old professor to hobble out of the classroom after him, threatening to beat him over the head with his cane if he dared fail another test. Well, Victor couldn't yet prove that he had failed, and perhaps that was why Professor Holmes had not yet assassinated him for his poor performance. The old man was probably waiting until he got to the comfort of his own dorm, he wanted to make sure a look of horror immediately preceded a look of surprise. Perhaps being beaten to death with a walking stick was preferable than having to write his quarterly grade update to his father. In fact...Victor turned, wishing to hear the heavy thunking of his professor's cane upon the floors. Alas the hall was empty, all of the doors closed. The rest of the hall was either in class, in sports, or asleep. Boys halls produced little else.
"Reggie, we might be in trouble," Victor announced as he opened the door, scanning the room to find where his roommate was perching today. Reginald was an English major, and was thus tasked with reading books that contained not a single number. He was given fantasy novels, autobiographies, histories...and was supposed to finish them within the week. Because of this Reginald was always quite lost within the pages of the book, and if he wasn't sleeping or eating he was instead sprawled somewhere within their shared bedroom. When his mind was racing so too were his muscles, and staying still was hardly an option within five minutes. Thankfully he was not too hard to place today, for he had managed to get the window open and swing his feet out into the autumn air, crooked like a hunchback as he pressed his book to the panes of the glass and wiggled his bare feet through the chill. There had been times where he sat underneath their hanging coats in the wardrobe, squashed himself between his drawers under his bed, and even helped himself to Victor's bed, having sat right on the boy's pillow with his forehead visibly sweating, so entranced with his book he must have confused the mattress for his own.
"We might be in trouble, or you might?" the boy's gray head cocked back in clarification, his glasses slipping up the brim of his nose and landing dangerously in the middle of his large forehead.
"Well, if you like me as a roommate I'd say we," Victor decided with a huff.
"Not that math test?" Reginald clarified, finding his bookmark where it sat on the sill next to him (a wrinkled tissue, its cleanliness questionable) and swinging his feet back into the safety of the dorm room.
"I don't know what I got yet, I'm not brave enough to look," Victor admitted, setting his bag heavily upon his desk chair and walking nervously to the window, handling the folded paper like one would a bomb. "But Professor Holmes flipped it upside down, and he didn't for anyone else."
"That man's senile, he probably didn't know which way was up," Reggie reminded him, to which Victor could only force a smile. Senile wasn't quite the word he would have used, for he would have imagined someone losing their mind would be unable to correctly solve a math equation. Or perhaps Professor Holmes was losing everything but his ability to equate. That would explain the blank stares he offered the class whenever they forced him off of his daily script, such as asking how his day was going, or what he had for lunch.
"Would you read it?" Victor suggested urgently, holding out the curled test as if offering his roommate some extraordinary power.
"Well, reading is my specialty," Reggie chuckled. "Though I warn you, if I have to calculate below zero it will stump me."
"There's no way I did worse than zero," Victor protested, though for a moment he hesitated, wondering if perhaps he misspelled his name at the top of the page. Would that old professor dock points for such a thing?
"Right," Reggie cleared his throat, crossing his legs upon the wooden window sill and straightening his tie where it poked from beneath his sweater. "Victor Trevor scored, on this fine October day of 1977, with a slight chill in the air but the leaves still hanging tight..."
"Get on with it Reggie!" Victor complained, feeling his knees trembling as he curled his hands anxiously, watching as Reggie slowly uncurled the papers within his palm. The boy's glasses reflected red, red marker undoubtedly...though for a moment he looked puzzled.
"Is it a fraction?" Victor whispered, watching as Reggie's lips sounded out a couple of numbers, trying to equate in his head.
"Yep," Reggie agreed quietly.
"How far apart are the numbers?" Victor wondered, feeling his entire body begin to quiver with the agony of it all. Reggie's gray eyes hadn't shown any sign of excitement or despair, though Victor took that as pure idiocy, and not so much a true lack of emotion. Certainly the fraction was as indecipherable to the English major as the rest of the rest was to the engineering major...they were both unsuited for mathematics, and yet Victor had let his father stake his entire career on his being able to.
"Oh just give it here," Victor snarled, taking Reggie's massive pause to be a sign of defeat. He snatched the paper from the boy's hands, seeing so much red he thought he had burst a vein in his cornea, thus splotching the world with leaking blood. But no, no....that red was marker. And each mark...each mark denoted a mistake.
"Reggie...Reggie...get a pen," Victor whispered in defeat, shrinking down to his knees as he struggled to comprehend his score at the top right corner of the page. He couldn't imagine it would equate to anything worth the efforts, he may as well assume a zero and be pleasantly surprised when he ended the semester with more than one point to his name. He knew it was low, he knew it was terribly, terribly low.
Reggie snatched a pen from his desk, using his outrageously long limbs to snatch one from where he sat at the window.
"You want me to divide 32 from 75?" he asked casually, pressing the tip of the pen to the white wall, his eyes sparkling behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
"No, no!" Victor lunged for the pen, terrified at the prospect of his poor grades defacing the paint for the years to come. "I'll do it myself, it's good practice."
"Practice for fourth grade math, you mean?" Reggie teased.
"At least I've mastered that," Victor defended with a groan. Carefully he wrote out the numbers, dividing them from each other as methodically as one of the old masters. When he was finished he cursed under his breath, half wishing that he could not take the final answer seriously. Wishing that he had messed up even long division, so as to take solace that this score, pitiful as it was, could not possibly belong to him.
"Forty two..." Victor whispered. "Well, well actually a forty three. I'll take the liberty of rounding up."
"Doesn't help you much I'm afraid," Reggie sighed, kicking his bare heels against the paint and staring down at his collapsed roommate with as much sympathy as his hyperactive mind could process. Already he seemed to be losing interest, all the while victor was suddenly feeling the weight of the entire world pressing upon his shoulders. He could hear his father's voice now, his father screaming at him to try harder, to do better, to not waste his money on a degree that would only run them both into the ground...
"Maybe I'll join the army?" Victor suggested in a small whisper, looking up towards his roommate with a heavy feeling of hopelessness. His sweater was becoming too hot, his limbs incredibly heavy. The carpet felt like it was swallowing him whole, though perhaps that was due to his nerve endings frying themselves in protest, declining to feel anymore disappointment until he was finally able to perform to everyone's expectations. Even his own body had enough with him, and what was there in his power to do?
"I think you should switch majors," Reggie suggested, an idea that had been on the boy's mind since they first shook hands to greet each other. "You hate math, and you love books."
"And my father is the opposite. Remember who's paying the bill?"
"He won't be paying much of anything if you drop out. An English degree is better than nothing," Reggie reminded him with a little click of his tongue.
"You can be the one to pitch the idea to him," Victor insisted, letting the test drop to his chest as he reclined back to meet gravity, feeling it unnecessary to keep his posture straight when his spine was begging to be released from its tension. Settling his back upon the edge of the carpet and his head on the thick knots that served to decorate the edges, Victor tried to settle into some form of comfort. From here he could see Reggie's knee where it poked out from the windowsill, he could see his roommate's pale hand as it tapped along his trouser pants, and he could see the ceiling. The comforting ceiling...perhaps they should quiz him on how many cracks were settling into the construction, or how many gaps there were where the tiles stretched to meet each other. He was unlearned in anything properly useful, but Victor could easily claim the title as the most familiar with his dorm room's layout.
"I'm doing my best," Victor grumbled, clicking the pen in his right hand while he pulled at the carpet with his left. "I'm studying; doing my homework...I even have a tutor!"
"You hate your tutor," Reggie pointed out.
"Because she talks to me like I'm four years old," Victor defended.
"It's not her fault you don't even know what you don't know," Reggie insisted.
"She ought to be a bit more helpful than laughing at my idiocy."
"We all laugh at your idiocy, Victor. What else can bring an entire university joy like the struggles of one of its most pathetic students?"
"You should switch your major to psychology. You'd make a damn good therapist," Victor mumbled.
"Hey, I'm trying to lighten the mood right? Certainly you don't expect me to get down there on the carpet and wallow with you? It would do no good."
"Perhaps I could use a group wallow," Victor sighed, craning his neck so as to catch Reggie's eye in an attempt to see if he was smiling or not. The boy looked glassy eyed as usual, as if he saw neither invitation nor joke within his roommate's comment. Victor let his head fall back again.
"Why don't you go to your professor for help? Ask him to bend the rules a little bit...maybe give him a little kiss for bonus points?"
"God Reggie, is that how you've been getting on the Dean's list?"
"Oh yeah, you don't see me sneaking out the window to fall into my dear Professor's arms? Take notes, lover boy," Reggie chuckled.
"Honestly, I think I'd rather fail," Victor sighed.
"You never know until you try. Maybe your type really is crusty old men with limps," Reggie chuckled. Victor didn't even feel like responding to that. He felt it was not worth opening his mouth to dispute. Reginald was still chuckling when he rose from the windowsill, stepping barefoot around his sprawled roommate with his book still snapped shut in his hands, pacing across the carpet once and then twice before plopping down at Victor's side. He was like a dog who insisted on turning circles before it got comfortable, and, true to form, the boy seemed perfectly content when he was just slightly dizzy.
"Don't give up just yet, Victor," Reginald insisted. He plucked the test from Victor's chest, throwing it across the room so as to ensure it didn't weigh down his roommate's lungs too heavily for a proper breath. "This is just the beginning of the semester. Anything can happen from here."
"Anything?" Victor muttered, turning his head so as to watch Reggie's gray eyes sparkle. He was a boy without a color pallet, grey in hair and in iris, a gaunt face and a pair of horned glasses that only served to make him look more like a beast. He was like a tombstone, like an archway, like a stone. He was fascinating to look at, and even more beautiful the closer he got.
"Anything at all," Reginald assured, patting Victor's hand where it was sprawled on the carpet. Victor felt a sudden burst of paralysis, not sure if his roommate intended to take his hand, to hold it... Victor's breath exhaled hollow from his lips, his chest seemingly collapsing in on itself as he tried to struggle for a response, for a movement of his own.
Perhaps there was a limit to possibility after all. Victor dared get so worked up, though as his roommate pulled at each of his fingers it was finally revealed that he was trying to free his pen from Victor's grasp. He had annotations to write, after all.