“I’m in a hurry, Paulina,” I say quietly, wanting nothing more than to drop off this document and go home.
Her eyes go to my folder, and unfortunately my reflexes are slow when her hands snatch it. Before I can process what’s happening, she’s already pulled the diploma out.
“Paulina, please put my diploma back,” I say, and I wish my voice didn’t sound so vulnerable right now, but it’s my original. I don’t have a copy, and I know that’s what they need.
Her eyes scan the document, and if I needed any more confirmation that she hates me, I watch her extend the diploma out beyond the columns we’re standing under, directly into the rain.
I lunge for her hand, but the girl steps right into the middle of the garden, where the rain is already becoming torrential, and holds my diploma above her head like an umbrella.
“Paulina, that’s an official document, please!”
“Aww, poor Ame. I’m sure a star student like you doesn’t need this sad little diploma in her file.”
I don’t know why, but those words break something in me. Every moment someone laughed at me for being excited about a grade. Every time I turned down plans to go over a lesson one more time. Every instance when I was mocked because I was happy to get a good grade. All of it hits at once, and I feel tears gathering in my eyes because I know my diploma is already destroyed.
For a few seconds I just watch her hold the soaked paper in her hands, and as if what she’s done isn’t already enough, with her eyes fixed on me, she tears it in two. Thoughtearsis generous because at this point it’s absorbed so much water it just comes apart on its own.
“You should take better care of your things,querida.”
I watch her walk away while my diploma stays on the ground.
I don’t know at what point I ended up on my knees beside the piece of paper dissolving in front of me, and I have to lock a sound of pure frustration in my throat.
That paper represented my work. That diploma was the sum of every sleepless hour, every night I fell asleep with notes under my pillow.
And it was destroyed in a few seconds because I was too slow, too stupid to do something about it.
I feel the rain soaking through my jeans to the skin, but I don’t care. I’m locked in place, and I want to scream, want to tear something apart, but I can’t move.
“Amalia?” A voice comes from in front of me, and without thinking, I close my eyes when I realize who it belongs to.
Why today? Why right now?
“Amalia, for the love of every mathematician you keep naming in the worst situations, open your eyes and tell me what happened.”
My eyes obey, and when I meet his gaze, I don’t understand why something in me just settles.
Maybe because his presence tells me he could solve every problem I have, that he could take every fear I carry and tame it with nothing but the authority he radiates.
“It’s destroyed,” I whisper, lifting what’s left of my diploma.
His eyes go to the rain-soaked pieces, and I’m fairly sure he can’t even tell what I’m holding.
I watch drops of rain land on his forehead and his glasses, and only then do I realize he has no umbrella, no jacket.
“You’re getting rained on. I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” I say and wait for him to leave.
Because a normal professor would do exactly that. A normal professor wouldn’t give the slightest thought to my state or the fact that I’m on my knees in the middle of the garden next to the main faculty building holding scraps of wet paper.
But whatever Silas Vaughn is, “normal professor” doesn’t make the list.
“You’re soaked, Amalia. Let’s get out of here before your body becomes ninety percent water,” he says, and the only reason I look back up at him is the calm in his voice.
I know he already thinks I’m a disaster, so I get up and follow him as he guides me toward the building entrance.
Being the weekend, the hallway is empty. I sit down on a bench and try to shake off the water like a wet dog.
When I decide I’ve gathered enough nerve to look at him after my mental breakdown, I find him quietly seething next to me.
