Fern stood quickly, smacking her hip into the arm of the settee. Wincing, she shook her head fervently. “No, no, it’s not like that,” she insisted. “We’re merely friends, nothing more.”
“You always have your hair done nicely and your clothing neat. And your face at dinner, watching him with Rose…” Margaret gave her an understanding smile. “He is a darling young man.”
Tears stung her eyes. “He’s—he’s easy to talk to,” Fern replied, not meeting her aunt’s gaze. “And I’ve never had anyone understand me the way he does. But he doesn’t think of me like that,” she said, her throat tightening.
Margaret let out a low chuckle. “I’m not so certain. The way he looked at you, stealing glances all night…”
“It’s nothing, it can’t be anything.” Why would Alex want her when Rose was a possibility? Thinking about it made her feel grievously disloyal to Rose.
“Let me give you some advice, my dear girl,” Margaret said, squeezing Fern’s hand. “Don’t wait until you’re an old woman like me to have regrets about not taking charge of your life. You have more to offer him than you give yourself credit for. But for goodness’ sake, don’t lose your temper with him.”
“You’re not listening, I am explaining it!” Fern cried, throwing her pencil down on the table. Alex pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, reeling in his frustration. After three hours of work, both of them had reached their boiling points.
Alex ran his fingers roughly through his hair, leaving it sticking out in all directions. “This is what I’ve been telling you. If you don’t explain your thinking, and how you arrived at your conclusion, Sylvester will find every flaw.”
After classes that afternoon, Alex stopped in Professor Sylvester’s office, holding his breath as he told him the name of his student and the topic of her research. Sylvester initially balked but admitted his curiosity had been piqued. The meeting would still take place, but Alex knew Fern would have to be spectacular to convince the man of her abilities.
He struggled with his own thoughts that evening. It had been two days since the disastrous dinner and he’d spent considerable time ruminating on the evening’s events. Rose was a beautiful, shimmering light. She was kind and gracious, and she seemed to have developed genuine feelings for him. Rose’s father and the connections he would provide would guarantee the future he always wanted. He would not have to worry about his mother being cared for. He could even afford to move her from Birmingham to London with him and provide for her properly.
But the idea of asking for Rose’s hand in marriage made his stomach turn. The Waverly family was kind and reasonably welcoming, but he had left Boar’s Hill with a heavy weight on his chest. Everything about it felt wrong, as though he were experiencing a surreal dream instead of enjoying dinner with his future family.
Fern never mentioned what he had witnessed in her home, and he was reluctant to bring it up. She already had her nose buried in her notebooks whenever he arrived in the library and made no move to discuss what had taken place.
Hence their current position at a study carrel in the Bodleian, approaching their fourth hour of work. The sun had long since completed its descent on the temperate spring day, but Fern showed no sign of stopping. Alex’s stomach rumbled unpleasantly and his head throbbed.
“I don’t know how to explain how I know the pattern, I just…do.” Fern rubbed her temples, squeezing her eyes closed.
“Say the words in your head when you think about your theory,” he said, taking a deep breath to maintain his patience.
“That’s the problem, I don’t have any words,” she replied, her voice curt. “I’ve never had to explain it before. No one has ever been interested.”
“Well,” he said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I’m interested.”
Fern wrung her hands on top of her notebook. “It doesn’t make sense. I’ve—I’ve tried to explain it, but—” She stopped, as though weighing her next words.
Alex watched her intently. He had never seen her without words. Frankly, she often had too many words.
Fern huffed. “I can’t explain it… It’s like…” She squeezed her eyes shut again and shook the tension from her shoulders. “Poetry is like music, but for mathematics. When I play music, I can feel where it’s going, where the cadence and the patterns will arrive when they settle. It's soothing, and I can’t explain why it feels that way, what happens with the notes or the chords, I know when it’s right. Don’t you?”
He nodded, watching her face in earnest. She opened her eyes, and the green and amber irises glittered. Her mind was mesmerizing, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.
“It’s the same way with math. I can…feelwhere the numbers are going. And when it’s right, it’s a sense of satisfaction, a beautiful closure, like the resolution of a chord.“ She looked at Alex as though desperate for him to understand. “Can you see? When it’s right, you feel it, even if you can’t explain it.”
Alex could only stare, his mouth agape. Fern looked down at her hands, red rising in her cheeks. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”
“No,” Alex said, grabbing her hand without thinking. “Not wrong at all. It’s—I don’t think you realize how special your mind is.”
His breath caught when he saw Fern’s eyes brimming with tears. “Fern, what’s wrong?”
She took in a shuddering breath. “I’m always saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. My family, they—they don’t want to hear from me.”
“That’s not true,” Alex said, squeezing her hand. “Maybe it’s easier for you to be yourself when you’re not with them. I didn’t see the Fern I know the other night.”
“It is true,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “The night with my family was a perfect example, wasn’t it? I learned how to hide, how to fit in as best I could, but it still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t…right.”
“Is it always like that with your family?”
Fern looked down, pulling her hand away and worrying her lower lip in her teeth. “They don’t mean any harm by it, really. They love me, I know, but...” She sighed. “They treat me as though I’m a child, like they expect me to combust at any moment, like I’m fragile and about to shatter. I know it’s to protect me because they hate to see me distraught, but…I wish I could make my own decisions. Rose is choosing her future,” she said, gesturing at him. “I suppose it’s a natural consequence for being how I am.”
