Daniel:(I’m not going to say more because I’m afraid I will fuck this up.)
I don’t think I stopped grinning at all the rest of the way home.
My FaceTime rang at eight o’clock sharp. And once the connection went through, I was met with Daniel’s face. His hair looked wet, and he wore a plain gray T-shirt.
“My savior!” he said, smiling. “I had hockey practice today, and hockey days are hungry days. Let me eat this real quick.” He took a huge bite of something.
“Oh. So ... hi. How are you?” I held my phone out in front of me so he could see my face. I felt kind of awkward and didn’t know what to say. Which was weird, because there’d been no awkwardness when we saw each other Friday. And I’d weirdly been looking forward to this call for the last hour.
“I’m superb, now that I’m talking to you.”
“Um,” I said. “It’s no problem.”
He grinned as he did something with his phone, propping it up on a table in front of him or something. He took another bite of what looked like a huge bun. I could make out that he seemed to be sitting sideways on a bed, which was neatly made with a white floral comforter.
“Okay,” he said when he finished chewing. “So, I told you that I bombed that test last week. Well, it was more a nuclear disaster. I wish my uncle was into history or something instead of engineering. My brain isn’t wired for this math stuff. Unlike you, Count.”
“I don’t get why you don’t just tell your uncle that you don’t want to study engineering or whatever?”
He shrugged as he took another bite. I watched his cheekbones move as he chewed. “It’s a long story,” he finally said. “Why do you take calculus? I mean other than you’re so good at it. Where do you want to go for university?”
Right. Me asking about his family was overstepping his boundary. I was fine talking about myself, though. “I’m applying to University of Waterloo and University of Toronto. I’d probably prefer Waterloo, for either computational mathematics or software engineering.” I bit my lip. I often got weird comments when I told people what I wanted to study in university. Things likeyou don’t look like a mathematician. Orgirls always say they want to do coding, but it’s so competitive.Daniel wasn’t like that, though. He seemed to accept me as I was. “You said you want to be a pastry chef?”
“Yup,” he said. “George Brown College right here in Toronto has a great baking and pastry program. That’s where my aunt went—the one who has a bakery.”
I assumed his uncle wasn’t pleased with this plan. I wanted to ask more, learn about his goals and what he wanted to do after college, but I also didn’t want to. Both for his parameter, and a little bit for mine. I was determined not to develop a crush on Daniel, so keeping things professional was best. “So, what was your calc quiz on, anyway?”
“Limits. And that’s the problem.”
“Why?”
“Because I may be okay with all our parameters and guidelines, butlimitsmakes no sense!” he said. “What the heck does it even mean? I thought math was all like ... black and white. Concrete. Why am Itrying to figure out the value of something as it approaches something else or whatever the fuck is going on? I swear, when my teacher explains it, she may as well be speaking Japanese ... wait. First Hiroshima and now Japanese. My subconscious is on a Japan kick. I think I need some sushi.”
I frowned. “Did you mention Hiroshima?”
“No, but that’s what I was thinking when I said my test was like a nuclear bomb.”
I laughed again. “Show me the quiz.”
He texted me a picture of the quiz. I propped my phone up on my desk, and for the next hour, we went through each of the questions on it. It took him a while to pick up the concepts—I had to explain several times in different ways. But eventually he seemed to get it. He was, thankfully, capable of doing calculus; he just had to work at it a little harder. Which was fine. I totally accepted that math didn’t come as easy to others as it did for me.
“You should be a high school math teacher,” he said, after we finished the last question on the quiz. I couldn’t see his face on the phone screen while he was bent and looking at his notebook. “Not study computer math ... wait, what did you call it?”
I snorted. Like Mom would be okay with me being a teacher. “Computational mathematics. Basically, it’s programming computers to do complex math.”
He looked up at me, grinning. “Ooh, that’s smart. Then people won’t have to do it. Yes, do that.”
It was so different from how others reacted to my career choices. Daniel was so refreshing. “So, you feel okay with this quiz tomorrow?”
He shrugged. “A lot more okay than I was earlier. I should change your name from the Count to the Math Goddess, but I don’t want you to think I’m almost breaking parameter one again. Hey, how’s my end of this arrangement working? Did you post that pic on your social last week? I thought about joining Instagram to see it.”
“Maybe it worked a little too well. I would have tagged you in the picture if you weren’t such a wannabe boomer.”
“Hey, none of that. And you clearly haven’t met any boomers, because my Lola in the Philippines is all about the Facebook. That’s what she calls it.The Facebook.”
“So you don’t haveanysocials?”
“I’m more into actually being social than social media. I hang out with my hockey teammates on Discord, but that’s it.”
