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Authors: Mina V. Esguerra
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pen, starting over with the problem. "Why aren't you in applied math then?"
"I'm not good at it, but thanks for trying to flatter me."
"You're better than some of my classmates."
"We have stat in Psych. Some problems look familiar to me, that's all."
"Do you underestimate your abilities a lot?"
It was a joke, and it got him a poke in the rib. "I don't think I like calculating failure rates anyway."
"You won't have to do it if you're going to be a psychologist, that's true."
"Yeah, but three hundred failures per million hours? That's a lot of failures."
"It's not bad. Nothing ever runs twenty-four-seven for over a hundred years anyway."
"It's just weird that if this thing actually could be capable of running around the clock for that long, it'll still fail three hundred times. That's a lot."
"Does it help to know that on hundreds of thousands of instances it'll work perfectly fine?"
"Tell that to the unlucky three hundred."
Robbie stopped writing, and pushed his notes off his lap. Some of the loose sheets of paper fluttered off the bed (yes we were on his bed) and fanned out on the floor. Numbers that made sense to me when I was checking it, but just looked like random blue ink on the floor.
Normal writing on normal paper on a normal floor.
Robbie's bedroom was becoming familiar, and on this, my fourth time, it was becoming less weird that his parents knew we were up here. I don't know, maybe I expected more sneaking around. But then I told myself I was assuming that based on other relationships, maybe more screwed-up ones, and that was a job I didn't have to take with me when I was with Actual Boyfriend.
I was liking this, by the way. Hanging out. Helping with homework. Saying hello to his mother. Small things that I knew others experienced. It was nice to have them happen to me.
It was nicer seeing them happen to Robbie, because he just loved it. Everything. The smallest things, like when I replied with a smiley face to some message he sent, would make him happy.
This conversation was making him happy. And curious.
"So you're saying," Robbie said, pushing himself a tiny bit closer to me, "that you would rather this theoretical machine not be used at all, because of the highly unlikely chance it'll fail you?"
"Well..." Not when he put it that way. "It's just weird I guess, to put it down to a number like that. Why would anyone do anything if they could calculate their own failure rates?"
Robbie made a slight movement of his shoulders, and that brought him even closer, and soon his lips were so close that I could hardly keep track of what he was saying. "If you only knew how many times I told myself that this would never happen."
If only he knew that I knew.
He planned to kiss me, and I surprised him by kissing him first. It didn't stop him from thinking though. Wondering why I would think of something like that.
Why the pessimism.
Why fixate on failure.
And he was right. It wasn't his fault that I knew how wrong things could get.
Stop thinking about work, Hannah.
He nibbled on my lower lip, lightly, something he was trying out, and it tickled.
I open my eyes and I am under the shade of a tall and old tree, and Quin is sitting on its overgrown root beside me. He's in jeans and a white shirt, and also a jacket, which is totally weird because it's so warm.
I am aware of where I am, and I am still in Robbie's room, still in Robbie's arms.
And I am here.
I blush in both locations.
"Not the right time, Quin," I say, with difficulty.
He is amused by my discomfort. "I just want to demonstrate that you can do this."
"Do what? Please get out of here now."
"You can live your life right now and still perform your duties as goddess."
"All right all right I get it—can I not do it right now though?"
"Right at this moment, your friend Jessica's calling out to you."
As he says it, I do hear her. Her song is clearer in this space, and I feel her torment.
Her mother knows about the
"I'm not good at it, but thanks for trying to flatter me."
"You're better than some of my classmates."
"We have stat in Psych. Some problems look familiar to me, that's all."
"Do you underestimate your abilities a lot?"
It was a joke, and it got him a poke in the rib. "I don't think I like calculating failure rates anyway."
"You won't have to do it if you're going to be a psychologist, that's true."
"Yeah, but three hundred failures per million hours? That's a lot of failures."
"It's not bad. Nothing ever runs twenty-four-seven for over a hundred years anyway."
"It's just weird that if this thing actually could be capable of running around the clock for that long, it'll still fail three hundred times. That's a lot."
"Does it help to know that on hundreds of thousands of instances it'll work perfectly fine?"
"Tell that to the unlucky three hundred."
Robbie stopped writing, and pushed his notes off his lap. Some of the loose sheets of paper fluttered off the bed (yes we were on his bed) and fanned out on the floor. Numbers that made sense to me when I was checking it, but just looked like random blue ink on the floor.
Normal writing on normal paper on a normal floor.
Robbie's bedroom was becoming familiar, and on this, my fourth time, it was becoming less weird that his parents knew we were up here. I don't know, maybe I expected more sneaking around. But then I told myself I was assuming that based on other relationships, maybe more screwed-up ones, and that was a job I didn't have to take with me when I was with Actual Boyfriend.
I was liking this, by the way. Hanging out. Helping with homework. Saying hello to his mother. Small things that I knew others experienced. It was nice to have them happen to me.
It was nicer seeing them happen to Robbie, because he just loved it. Everything. The smallest things, like when I replied with a smiley face to some message he sent, would make him happy.
This conversation was making him happy. And curious.
"So you're saying," Robbie said, pushing himself a tiny bit closer to me, "that you would rather this theoretical machine not be used at all, because of the highly unlikely chance it'll fail you?"
"Well..." Not when he put it that way. "It's just weird I guess, to put it down to a number like that. Why would anyone do anything if they could calculate their own failure rates?"
Robbie made a slight movement of his shoulders, and that brought him even closer, and soon his lips were so close that I could hardly keep track of what he was saying. "If you only knew how many times I told myself that this would never happen."
If only he knew that I knew.
He planned to kiss me, and I surprised him by kissing him first. It didn't stop him from thinking though. Wondering why I would think of something like that.
Why the pessimism.
Why fixate on failure.
And he was right. It wasn't his fault that I knew how wrong things could get.
Stop thinking about work, Hannah.
He nibbled on my lower lip, lightly, something he was trying out, and it tickled.
I open my eyes and I am under the shade of a tall and old tree, and Quin is sitting on its overgrown root beside me. He's in jeans and a white shirt, and also a jacket, which is totally weird because it's so warm.
I am aware of where I am, and I am still in Robbie's room, still in Robbie's arms.
And I am here.
I blush in both locations.
"Not the right time, Quin," I say, with difficulty.
He is amused by my discomfort. "I just want to demonstrate that you can do this."
"Do what? Please get out of here now."
"You can live your life right now and still perform your duties as goddess."
"All right all right I get it—can I not do it right now though?"
"Right at this moment, your friend Jessica's calling out to you."
As he says it, I do hear her. Her song is clearer in this space, and I feel her torment.
Her mother knows about the
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