But he’s fixing me with a look that says he already knows I know the answer, and he’s daring me to play dumb. And I have never once turned down an intellectual challenge.
“At least one, at any given time,” I tell him, chin up, and something moves across his face. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a flicker that gives me the nerve to keep going. “And you didn’t mention the congruence axioms.”
If I’d blinked, I would have missed the way the corner of his mouth ticks upward at that. Before I can get a better look, he’s turned back to the board and writtencongruence axiomsin clean, deliberate letters.
Something shifts in my chest because he didn’t get angry. Another professor would have snapped at me for the remark.
Maybe he’s not so bad after all.
A few minutes later, his voice fills the room again.
“Does anyone see what’s wrong with the problem on the board?”
I look up and go through my notes carefully, but everything seems correct. The diagram has all its labels, every theorem applied has a logic behind it, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what’s off.
My pencil dances through my fingers — my personal stress-relief system.
What am I not seeing?
“Miss Sanchez.” That low, smooth voice says my name, and I swallow the knot of nerves lodged in my throat.
Yeah, about that “he’s not so bad.”
I look up at him, and that’s when I catch the satisfied look on his face. He knows I don’t have the answer, and that’s exactly why he called on me. To show me I’m not as smart as I think.
What he doesn’t know is that this is precisely why I always study ahead. Because not knowing the answer does something to me that I can’t logic my way out of. My pulse spikes first, then the heat rushes into my cheeks, then my hands start to tremble, faintly but enough that I press them flat against my thighs. It’s not embarrassment, not exactly. It’s something older and harder to explain, a reaction I’ve spent years trying to outrun by simply never being caught unprepared.
I think something in my face gives me away, because his eyes narrow on me, and then all I hear is his voice.
“You’re all free to go. Take the problem home and work through it.”
I hear movement all around me, and I think I even spot Gabriel leaving with a group of guys, but I’m stuck here, just trying to breathe through the panic attack.
I know. A panic attack over not knowing one answer. My brain, however, did not get the memo that it’s not a big deal, because it’s been replaying that moment on a loop since it happened and shows no signs of stopping. I can’t rein this in. I never can.
When I was nine years old,SeñoraAlvaro called me up to the board and I couldn’t solve the problem she gave me. All my classmates started laughing, said I wasn’t nearly as smart as I pretended to be, that I was a fraud, that my teachers gave me good grades out of pity because I was an orphan.
Lupe always fought them over it. Me? I developed panic attacks instead.
I force my eyes open, but the voice in my head is too loud this time, looping the same thought on repeat:if you’re not good enough here, you’re not good enough anywhere.
Come on, Amalia. It’s okay. Breathe. Breathe, damn it.
Something touches my hand, and I flinch away.
Please don’t touch me right now.
“Amalia.” The voice cuts through. “What’s the algorithm for finding the lowest-cost path between two nodes in a directed graph?”
Somehow my brain, locked in the voices of childhood classmates, makes a turn and locks onto his question instead.
Path. Minimum cost. Graph.
“Dijkstra’s algorithm,” I say, my voice quiet, but my mind’s steadier.
When I look up, I meet two eyes dark as obsidian, and for the first time since this lecture started, they shine. With understanding, of all things. Which only makes my face burn hotter.
You got it right, Amalia. You’re ok.
