Chapter 11 #2
I’m still holding Sebastian’s cube, and I stare at it for a moment while my phone buzzes away. Finally, I snap out of it and swipe across the screen to answer just before it sends Ronnie to voicemail.
“Where are you?” Ronnie sounds vaguely panicked, completely skipping over the pleasantries and getting right to the point. “I’m at the dorm and you’re not here. You weren’t even in the cafeteria when I went to look, or the library.”
My stomach drops and I cringe. “Sorry, I thought I’d be home before you got back.” I should have messaged Ronnie this morning to give her a heads up, but I wasn’t even thinking about her, I was so focused on my homework and the copious amounts of coffee the guys kept pouring for me.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Ronnie points out, irritation creeping into her voice as the panic ebbs. “Where are you? Did something happen?”
“I’m over near MIT. They were helping with my class article, and then we watched more of the show we started last time but it got late, so I crashed here, and then they offered that I could stay with them and study today.”
I drop my voice when I mention my reason for staying the night, moving into the living room and away from where the guys are so they don’t overhear me making it sound like I slept on the couch after working on my story all night.
It’s not entirely a lie, it just … omits some of the more interesting parts of the evening.
“Wait,” Ronnie interjects, then in a quieter voice adds, “Did something happen with one of the cute cube guys? Girl, you need to give me the details! I give you details all the time!”
“You give me too many details,” I counter, hoping the guys don’t decide now is the moment to come tell me lunch is ready. With my luck, though, that’s exactly what’s about to happen.
“You’re not denying it,” Ronnie sing-songs. “It’s finally happening! My little Rebecca is growing up, and soon she’ll have her first boyfriend, and then she’ll finally get laid! I’m so proud!”
“No comment,” I say dryly. The guys have accepted that I’m not interested in a relationship, but Ronnie will be much harder to convince. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get her to believe that I’m not, in fact, dating any of them.
“That means it’s true!” she squeals in my ear. I hold the phone slightly away from my head, wincing. “In that case, stay at their place as long as you want, but as soon as you do come home, I’m going to get all of the details out of you.”
I groan inwardly, because she’s right. Ronnie is a pro at prying information out of people, and I’m a terrible liar.
“Which one is it? Take a picture of him,” she adds, not giving me a chance to answer the question before barreling on into the next thought.
Which is good, because I have no idea what to tell her.
“The last time I saw all of them it was too dark and quick for me to remember what they look like. Posed is ideal, but I’d take a candid. Just make sure I can see his face.”
“You’re annoying.”
“You love me.” Ronnie makes confident kissy sounds at me through the phone, then hangs up.
“Everything okay?” asks Elliot as soon as I return to the kitchen.
They’re all sitting around the little table in the corner, elbow to elbow, since the extra chair has made space tight. I almost point out that we could use the bigger dining room table, but it’s so filled with homework that it would be silly to put it away only to pull it right back out again.
“Yeah, I just forgot to tell Ronnie I was staying over, so she freaked out thinking I’d been kidnapped.”
“We should have reminded you,” says Lukas, shaking his head. “We’ll do better next time.”
I’m about to point out that it’s not their job to make sure Ronnie knows where I am, but before I can say anything, Felix speaks up, sounding sad but resigned.
“So do we need to take you back now? Does she need you?”
“Nah, once she realized I’m alive she told me to stay here as long as I wanted.” Technically, it was more like she wanted me to stay here so I can eventually get lucky, but I’m not going there right now.
“Oh, perfect,” says Elliot, adjusting his food on his plate but not actually eating any of it. “You must be hungry. We wanted to make you a plate, but didn’t know what you’d want.”
Felix adjusts his napkin and the rotation of his plate too, and I realize that all of their food is untouched.
“That’s okay, I can make it. You don’t have to wait for me, you can start eating.” It’s sweet of them to want to wait, but there’s no reason for it. This isn’t a formal dinner or anything, we don’t need to be beholden to etiquette to that degree.
I survey and the sandwich fixings arranged on the counter. There’s … a lot of options. They must take their sandwiches seriously. Although I suppose there isn’t anything they don’t take seriously.
“It’s nice that Ronnie called you to make sure you’re okay,” says Sebastian. “She’s a good friend.”
“Mm-hmm.” I pop two slices of bread into the toaster and pour some chips onto my plate. I still don’t hear any chewing or even any movement behind me. “Really, guys, it’s fine, you can eat. I’ll be there in a minute.”
As soon as the toast pops up, I hurriedly assemble my sandwich and carry my plate over to the table. This time Elliot is sitting in the folding chair. Felix was there for breakfast, so I’m sure it’s yet another rotation they’re going to track somehow.
All eyes are on me as I pick up a chip and take a bite. That was obviously the signal because as soon as I start to chew, the guys all immediately pick up their own sandwiches.
We spend a few minutes just eating, and I watch in fascination as Elliot takes a bite of his sandwich, sets it down, makes sure there is a perfect empty line between his sandwich and his chips, selects and eats a chip, and then picks up his sandwich again.
He does this in rotation, chip, sandwich, chip, sandwich.
I’m so curious what his criteria is for the order in which he eats his chips, because he’s considering the pile before selecting one each time, but it would probably be rude to ask him.
“Did you see that Fredrik is working on the Collatz Conjecture?” asks Elliot. “He’s posted about it on the message boards.”
“He’s never going to solve it,” scoffs Felix. “He doesn’t fully understand the parity cycles.”
“The bigger reason is that the math hasn’t caught up to that equation. We don’t have the math to prove it, and he’s not going to be the one to push it. He’s not creative enough,” Lukas agrees.
“I didn’t say he was going to prove it. I said he’s working on it,” Elliot clarifies. “Besides, it’ll be a cuber who solves it, and he couldn’t solve his way out of Schrodinger’s box.”
The group chuckles at this, so I guess it’s a funny joke.
But the entire conversation has gone right over my head.
I have no idea what a Collatz Conjecture or parity cycle is, and while I have heard of Schrodinger’s box, all I know is that it has something to do with a dead cat, and I’m not sure how that connects to cubing.
I knew they were smart, but this is beyond what I can even fathom.
I’d been thinking I could have them help me with my math homework, but my gen ed math class would look like child’s play to them.
If they find out I’m in such a basic math class, they’ll probably think I’m stupid.
I’m not, it’s just that my brain is wired for words, not numbers, and I don’t see the graphs and equations in my head the way they probably can.
While I’ve been thinking about this, they appear to have run out of things to say about Frederik and his inevitably doomed attempt to solve whatever the Collatz Conjecture is. The conversation fades as they all return to eating, and I notice that their hands are empty except for their sandwiches.
“Where are your cubes? Wouldn’t this be a perfect time to get in more practice?”
Elliot shakes his head. “No cubes at meals.”
“It’s a newer rule,” adds Sebastian.
“I’m telling you, it was an accident.” Felix glares at them all.
Elliot shudders, his expression haunted. “The intent has no weight on the outcome.”
I lean forward, grinning. “This sounds like a story.”
“Someone,” Lukas says, giving Felix the side-eye, “sabotaged us for all upcoming group challenges involving the cubes.”
“It was not sabotage!” Felix insists. “It was an accident. I was looking for my own cube, but you’d all left yours lying around instead of putting them away.”
“We all leave our cubes out, even you, so you can’t push back on that,” argues Sebastian.
“But what happened, exactly?” Watching them get heated is kind of entertaining, but I’m not getting any information. I’m a reporter, I live for the details.
They had told me last night at the café that before joining the cubing community, they all felt a sense of loneliness, a lack of belonging when it came to their peers, because most of their classmates just didn’t have the same interests or, let’s face it, the same smarts as they did.
Seeing how they joke and bicker together, I’m struck by how comfortable they are with one another.
Almost more like brothers than roommates.
I’m taking mental notes for my article on their camaraderie, how they interact with one another in different scenarios, because it could work really well to juxtapose these types of interactions with their previous feelings of being outsiders.
In his irritation, Felix is gripping his sandwich so hard his fingers are leaving deep impressions in the bread, and mustard is beginning to leak out from the crust. “I accidentally got syrup on their cubes. Which made the gears stick the barest amount.”
“Speedcubing is all about the microsecond. You could have given yourself an advantage, since yours was the only cube that wasn’t affected,” Lukas points out.
“Exactly,” agrees Sebastian. “It’s unfair.”