margins of error -Micheal Gavey

Prologue

At Oxford, everyone plays a part.

The philosophers wax poetic in pubs about free will they don’t believe in. The medics complain about sleep while secretly loving the grind. The humanities students linger in gardens, pretending their degrees aren’t melting in their hands like butter.

And then there’s the ones like me — the ones who don’t fit. Watching. Measuring. Calculating.
I always thought that gave me an advantage.

I don’t get caught off guard. I don’t get involved. I keep to my side of the library and my side of the line.
I don’t gamble with people. People are chaos.

But then she showed up.

Sunglasses indoors. Laughter too loud. Smile too bright.
Felix’s cousin.

I should’ve known better.

She pretended not to notice me.
But I saw her.

And what I saw didn’t make sense.

The girl who acted like her brain was full of lip gloss and pop music?

She was solving statistical regression models in her notebook like it was nothing.

Something about her didn’t add up.
And that was the first thing I liked about her.