Because Lucy’s cries sound through the kitchen, and she drops her eyes to the screen, touching her mouth. He watches her blink, her expression morphing into one of guilt as she looks away.
“Jahlani—”
“Go. Take care of her,” she says, still not meeting his eyes.
He steps back as she adjusts her shirt, feeling torn.
“I’ll be right back, just—don’t move, please. I want to talk.” He walks backwards, watching her shoulders hunch over as she nods her head, not seeming to fully register his request. He dashes into the bathroom that’s in the hallway, sees his tousled hair, bruised lips, manic eyes, and thinks about how fucked he is because it was so much better than he imagined it being. But in all his imagined scenarios, he never made it to this part—the aftermath.
He knows she’s a rule follower, he knows she’s sitting on his island overthinking everything that just happened, if he could just soothe Lucy quickly.
He hears the soft click of the door closing and walks back out to the kitchen, a sniffling Lucy in his arms.
“Fuck,” he whispers, moving to the entryway to turn the porch light on. He doesn’t bother chasing after her. She needs space to think. He understands, really. He rubs Lucy’s head, bouncing her before moving her back to her room and placing her in the crib.
They crossed the line. This time together, he thinks as he moves to the kitchen to place the cinnamon roll in a container. He snaps the lid shut, shoving the container so hard it slides down the counter and falls off the edge.
“Damn it,” he mutters, tugging his hand through his hair.
Wiping a hand down his face, he reaches for his phone to text her, but stops himself, throwing it onto the counter.
Sighing, he bends, picking up the larger pieces of glass before sweeping the remainder with the broom. As he drops into the stool, he decides that he’ll give her two days.
After that, all bets are off.
Because if there was one positive thing that came from tonight, it was that he knows she wanted this just as much as he did.
CHAPTER 24
THE SOBER THEORY
JAHLANI
Ms. Jahlani,
Please give me an extension on the quiz that was due two weeks ago. My girlfriend of three years left me and I’m really going through it right now. Your understanding in this matter is highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Justin
“Let’s talk about principal component analysis, or PCA. Yes, it will be in the midterm in less than two weeks, so look alive people. So, what happens when you have, say, too much data, and it starts to look like a giant, unmanageable mess?”
Jahlani gestures at the projected slide, where a scatter plot filled with overlapping points appears.
“This looks catastrophic. But we can’t just ignore it because it’s big. That is where PCA comes in—by reducing the dimensions. You’re basically summarizing a big chunk of data into a smaller set of important ‘components’ while keeping the most critical information. Does that make sense so far?”
She turns back to face an almost empty room. Those who are there look like zombies. They offer the barest nods of understanding. She checks her watch, hoping to cut the lecture short. She can barely manage the migraine she’s nursing right now.
A broad-shouldered guy in a small pair of frames raises his hand. “You won’t lose data by doing that?”
Jahlani nods, reaching for her flask of ginger tea. “Yes, you’re technically losing some information, but PCA is designed to keep the most critical parts. It works by finding the directions of maximum variance in your data, which, mathematically, we call ‘eigenvectors.’ These are the axes that matter most.”
Turning, she writes the wordeigenvectorson the board and underlines it.
“The great thing is that PCA gives us new axes that help us see patterns in our data we might have missed before. It’s all about simplification without losing the essence of the story.”
She pauses and looks around the room to find more zombie-like stares. Sighing, she sets her cup down.
