Age 12
The lecture hall at East Texas Tech was louder than usual that Friday evening.
Dr. Sturgis had announced a "special guest," which could mean either a visiting physicist or a new kind of chalk.
The air buzzed with curiosity as students shuffled in. Sheldon sat in his usual spot, perfectly aligned with the center of the board, his pencil sharp enough to perform surgery. I sat beside him, notebook open, half-listening, half-contemplating the Riemann Hypothesis. It had caught my attention, and I believed it would hold it for a long while.
In my notebook, I had the prime numbers written out: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13…
When I looked up from my musing, I saw a girl, ten? eleven?, carrying a stack of books thicker than her arms should allow. She wore a sky-blue sweater and had that same look I'd seen in the mirror: a brain two sizes too big for the world around it.
While others whispered, I was already in my head. I recognized her, not from this life, but the last. It's strange: some faces I remember, some I don't. But I remembered her story, or rather, the emptiness of it. Maybe this time, I could help change it.
Dr. Sturgis clapped his hands. "Everyone, please welcome Paige Swanson! She'll be auditing my class this semester."
Sheldon perked up. "Oh, delightful! Finally, someone who can appreciate higher-order tensors without glazing over."
I smirked. Classic Sheldon.
Paige smiled politely and took the seat beside him. The moment her pencil touched the page, I could tell she wasn't taking notes; she was translating thoughts. Every few seconds she paused, erased, and rewrote, faster than most people could blink.
Dr. Sturgis began his lecture on quantum coherence, chalk sweeping in sharp arcs across the board.
Sheldon's hand shot up every three sentences; Paige's only once.
"If coherence collapses under observation," she said evenly, "then technically, Dr. Sturgis, you haven't proven it exists. You've only proven that we interfere."
The professor froze mid-equation.
"Well," he said, grinning like a proud scientist who'd just been bested, "that's distressingly accurate."
Sheldon frowned, lips tight. "That's a philosophical dodge, not a scientific argument."
Paige turned slightly, eyes bright but calm. "Sometimes they're the same thing."
Light laughter rippled through the room. Sheldon did not find it funny.
I watched, half amused, half fascinated. She wasn't showing off; she was trying to keep up with her own brain.
And I recognized the exhaustion in her smile, the same look I'd had when I first realized the world wouldn't move at my speed.
When the lecture ended, Dr. Sturgis pulled the three of us aside.
"Children," he said proudly, "you remind me that intellect knows no age, only appetite. I think we should form a special study group, a forum for the gifted mind."
Sheldon looked thrilled. Paige looked like she'd just been handed extra homework.
And me?
I thought about the Riemann Hypothesis.
As the students filed out, Paige lingered by the chalkboard, staring at one unfinished equation.
"Do you ever feel like your brain's a storm and everyone else is standing in the rain?" she asked softly.
I glanced at the equation. "Yeah. But storms pass. That's the trick."
She smiled, tired but real, and gathered her books.
Dr. Sturgis was rambling to Sheldon about Schrödinger's cat, but I wasn't listening anymore.
The sun had already set, and the campus air carried that strange mix of humidity and chalk dust. Streetlights flickered on one by one, drawing pale circles across the pavement.
Meemaw was late picking us up again. Sheldon and Dr. Sturgis stood near the steps, locked in what could only be described as quantum combat.
"…but the cat isn't both alive and dead," Sheldon insisted. "It's a failure of observational closure!"
Dr. Sturgis clapped his hands. "Or perhaps a triumph of ambiguity!"
"Ambiguity isn't triumphal."
"Isn't it?"
I left them to it.
Paige was sitting alone on the low brick wall near the fountain, her books beside her like quiet soldiers. She wasn't reading, just watching the water, her reflection bending with every ripple.
I sat a few feet away.
"You broke Sheldon," I said. "That's impressive. Most people need a PhD to do that."
She huffed a small laugh. "He'll recover. He likes being right too much not to."
Silence settled between us, comfortable and strange. The hum of campus life filled the gaps: crickets, distant traffic, laughter from somewhere unseen.
"You handled the lecture like you've been doing it for years," I said.
She shrugged. "I've been doing something for years. My parents keep moving me from school to school. They say it's to 'challenge' me, but it just means I start over every few months."
"That sounds… exhausting."
"It is. Everyone's proud of what I can do, but no one really talks about how lonely it feels doing it."
I looked down at my notebook, then back at her. "It's like being on a mountain and realizing there's no one else up there."
Her lips curved into a half-smile. "Exactly."
She turned the topic with quiet cleverness. "You're Stephen, right? The quiet one?"
I snorted. "That's a generous interpretation. I'm lazy, not quiet."
That made her laugh, a real one this time, short and sharp.
"Well, lazy or not, you saw the coherence equation before Sturgis did."
I shrugged. "Observation's easy. Doing something with it, that's the work."
Paige looked back at the fountain, her expression softening. "You ever wish you didn't have to think so much?"
"Sometimes," I said. "But then I remember, if I stop, someone else has to start."
She stared at me for a long moment, like she was filing that away.
"Maybe you should talk more," she said finally. "You actually make sense."
"Don't tell Sheldon," I said. "He'll write a paper disproving that."
We both laughed, and for the first time that night, the air felt lighter.
She stared at my eyes when the streetlight hit them just right. "It's faint, but when the light hits, your eyes look purple."
"Ah, yes," I said. "Born with a mutation. Most people think it's a trick of the light, blue some days, gray on others. I stopped correcting them. It's easier that way."
Meemaw's car finally pulled up, headlights cutting through the dark.
Sheldon jumped in mid-debate, Dr. Sturgis waving from the steps. Paige gave a small wave of her own as I slid into the back seat.
As the car pulled away, I looked out the window and saw her still sitting there, small, still, surrounded by her books and the glow of the campus lights.
For the first time, I realized brilliance wasn't always a gift.
Sometimes it was gravity.
Sheldon was still riding high, recounting every moment. He told Meemaw about Paige in exhaustive detail.
Meemaw smirked around her cigarette. "Well, hell, Shelly, sounds like you met your match."
Sheldon and Meemaw traded words; I tuned them out, my thoughts already elsewhere.
When she parked in front of the house, Meemaw tapped her cigarette against the ashtray.
"Y'all listen to me, brains are great, but they ain't everything. You keep an eye on that girl, Stephen. Kids like her burn bright, but they burn fast if nobody's watching."
I nodded. "I will."
She smiled. "Good. Now get your butts inside before your mama thinks I stopped for beer."
Sheldon darted out first. I lingered a second longer, watching the faint orange glow of her cigarette fade against the night.
When I finally went inside, I sat at my desk and wrote one line in my ciphered journal:
"Brilliance attracts brilliance, but loneliness multiplies faster."
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