(AN: Recently I have been going back through all my notes and putting them all together in a more easy assessable and organized form I don't know why I took so long to do it (I mean I do im lazy) so much better.)
November – December 1992 · UT Austin to Medford, Texas
The air in Austin finally decided to feel like winter. Not real winter, just enough to make people pretend. Students swapped T-shirts for sweaters and carried coffee cups like they were insulation. The wind coming off the river carried that thin, metallic smell of cold metal and library dust.
Dr. Li ended the semester the way she always did: one sentence, no flourish.
"Even perfect systems pause between cycles."
The chalk squeaked as she underlined pause. Then she nodded once, erased the board, and walked out before anyone could applaud.
I wrote it down even though I already knew I would remember. Beside me, Paige leaned over and whispered, "Try it sometime."
"I pause," I said.
"You buffer," she said.
She was right.
Thanksgiving break thinned the dorms to the sound of vents and vending machines. The echo changed; even footsteps felt lonely. Paige stayed, same as me. The cafeteria closed, so we made do, pizza, vending-machine chips, and one of Professor Kim's labs we were not technically supposed to be in.
The monitors glowed soft blue, casting light on our faces instead of our work. She had pulled her hair into a messy knot, sleeves rolled, looking more like she belonged in the lab than the machines did.
She opened a new file and typed print("gratitude") for no reason.
"Friendship is recursive gratitude," she said.
"If the base case holds," I answered.
"You would say that."
"Because it's true."
She smiled. "Then I'm thankful for proof."
The rest of the night existed in small sounds: chewing, typing, the hum of equipment pretending to think for us. Outside, wind pressed against the windows like it wanted in.
Finals week arrived disguised as caffeine. People spoke in shorthand, numbers, due dates, syllables of panic. Paige and I fell into a silent agreement: study together, sleep eventually.
The day grades posted, she appeared at my door holding a small wrapped box. "Early Christmas," she said.
"You realize I didn't get you—"
"You did," she said, setting it on my desk.
Inside was a pen, metal, balanced, the kind made for people who care about how thoughts land on paper.
"For all those notes you pretend aren't feelings," she said.
She looked proud of herself for saying it.
I reached under the desk, pulled out the small package I had been pretending was not ready. A leather-bound notebook, dark brown, plain except for a tiny embossed ∑ in the corner.
She traced it with her thumb. "Summation?"
"Closure," I said.
She laughed softly, the kind of sound you store for later. "Then I'll write the proofs you don't."
For a moment neither of us spoke. The light from the window turned her hair gold at the edges. She looked at me like she wanted to memorize something but was not sure what.
"Don't overthink Christmas," she said finally, sticking a note to my desk. Then she turned and left before I could answer.
Home felt like a system reboot: same hardware, new runtime. Medford's sky was colorless, the streets half asleep. The house smelled like cinnamon and ambition.
Mom was orchestrating chaos with military precision. Georgie and Dad wrestled the turkey fryer into compliance while Sheldon delivered a lecture about the improbability of Santa surviving atmospheric re-entry. Missy hummed "Jingle Bells" slightly off-key just to irritate him.
I fixed the tree lights because no one else would. The bulbs blinked in inconsistent rhythm until I found the short in the wiring and replaced it. Meemaw watched from the couch, cocoa in hand.
"You always did like fixing pretty problems no one asked you to," she said.
"Habit."
"At least it's a warm one," she said, smiling.
The living room glowed, soft, uneven, alive. For the first time in months, I was not measuring the light.
That night, the air on the porch carried the smell of cold cedar and distant smoke. Meemaw wrapped herself in her robe and handed me tea in her favorite chipped mug.
"You look different," she said. "Quieter."
"Maybe the buffer's clearing," I said.
She laughed. "You and those words. That girl you study with, she special?"
"She's brilliant," I said.
"You like brilliant."
"It's efficient."
"Efficient's fine till the coffee's gone," she said. "After that, you'll want true."
I stared at the yard. The neighbor's Christmas lights blinked like bad code. "She gave me a pen," I said.
"That's how it starts," she said.
We drank the rest of the tea in companionable silence, the kind that counts as conversation when both people understand what is not being said.
Christmas morning came slow. Sunlight moved across wrapping paper like a clock hand. Missy laughed at everything; Sheldon catalogued his gifts in ascending order of utility; Dad carved ham while Mom declared success before tasting it.
I sat near the tree, notebook on my lap, watching the lights I had fixed hold steady. When no one was looking, I opened the cover. Paige's note, Don't overthink Christmas, was still tucked inside, the ink slightly smudged from travel. Beneath it, I had slipped a folded scrap of paper from the box her pen came in. She had written two words on the receipt before tossing it: Merry Logicmas.
I smiled. It felt like she had known I would go looking for meaning and hidden one anyway.
That night, the house exhaled. Wrapping paper bagged, dishes washed, heater humming like it had finally forgiven winter. I sat at my old desk, the one with the compass gouge from years ago, and opened the new notebook.
The pen glided perfectly. She had chosen well.
Home is a function that returns to itself.
Stability is not stillness. It is return.
I let the ink dry, then underlined return once. Outside, the porch light flickered, hesitated, then steadied, exactly the way systems do when they find balance again.
I closed the notebook, turned off the lamp, and let the house breathe around me. Somewhere down the hall, Missy snored softly; Sheldon mumbled equations in his sleep; Meemaw's television played a game show rerun too low to understand.
For the first time in a long time, I did not feel the need to fix anything.
Tomorrow would begin another cycle. Tonight, I was the pause between them.
Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated.