Two Weeks
Later
Altair had
developed a routine, and routines made Oxford feel less like a foreign planet.
Wake up at 6
AM. Shower while the bathroom was still empty. Coffee from the machine in the
common room that tasted like burnt rubber but had enough caffeine to make his
brain work. Classes from 9 to 4, with breaks spent either in the library or on
that same bench outside the Physics Department where he'd met Yuna.
Smoking.
Always smoking.
Dinner
alone, or sometimes skipped entirely in favor of instant noodles in his room.
Then
homework until midnight, sometimes later, staring at equations that made
perfect sense in his head but turned into incomprehensible garbage the moment
he tried to write them down.
It was
lonely, but manageable.
The classes
themselves were brutal. Oxford didn't ease you into physics—it threw you into
the deep end and watched to see if you'd drown. Quantum mechanics, classical
mechanics, mathematical methods, electromagnetism. Four lectures a day, each
one dense with information that professors rattled off like they assumed
everyone was already halfway to a PhD.
Most
students took frantic notes, scribbling everything down word-for-word.
Altair
didn't.
He couldn't.
His
handwriting was terrible on a good day—shaky, inconsistent, barely legible. And
when he tried to copy equations from the board, something in his brain just...
stopped working. The symbols made sense when the professor explained them. The
logic clicked. He could see the answer, feel it like a physical thing in
his mind.
But
translating that into written form? Impossible.
So he just
listened. Absorbed. Trusted that his brain would hold onto it.
His notebook
remained mostly empty.
Week
Three: The Tutorial
Oxford's
teaching system was built around tutorials—small group sessions where you'd
discuss your work with a professor or graduate student. It was supposed to be
intimate, challenging, a chance to really engage with the material.
Altair's
first tutorial was in quantum mechanics.
He sat in a
small room with two other first-years—a girl named Charlotte who'd gone to some
prestigious boarding school, and a guy named David who never stopped talking
about his gap year in Switzerland.
The tutor,
Dr. Harrington, was a thin man in his fifties with wire-rimmed glasses and the
kind of perpetual frown that suggested he'd been disappointed by students for
decades.
"Right,"
Dr. Harrington said, settling into his chair. "Let's discuss the problem
set. Question three—modeling a particle in a one-dimensional infinite potential
well. Who wants to start?"
Charlotte
immediately launched into her solution, referencing her twelve pages of
handwritten notes, complete with diagrams and color-coded annotations.
Dr.
Harrington nodded along, occasionally interjecting with questions.
David went
next, less polished but clearly confident.
Then Dr.
Harrington looked at Altair. "And you?"
Altair
hesitated. He'd solved the problem. Obviously. It was straightforward once you
set up the boundary conditions and applied the Schrödinger equation. But he
hadn't written it down in any coherent way.
"I...
solved it," Altair said. "The eigenvalues are quantized as n-squared
over eight mL-squared, and the wave functions are sinusoidal with nodes at the
boundaries."
Dr.
Harrington raised an eyebrow. "Can you show me your work?"
Altair
opened his notebook. The page had maybe three lines of barely legible
scribbles.
Dr.
Harrington frowned. "This is your solution?"
"I
worked it out in my head."
"In
your head."
"Yeah."
A long
pause.
"Mr.
Altair," Dr. Harrington said slowly, "This is Oxford. We expect
rigor. Proofs. Written work that demonstrates understanding. You can't simply
claim you 'worked it out in your head.'"
"But I
did—"
"Without
written justification, your answer is worthless." Dr. Harrington closed
Altair's notebook and slid it back across the table. "I suggest you take
your studies more seriously."
Charlotte
and David exchanged glances.
Altair said
nothing. Just nodded and stared at the table.
Worthless.
Week
Four: The Lecture Hall Incident
Professor
Lennox was lecturing on quantum entanglement—specifically, the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and the implications for information theory.
Altair sat
in the back row, half-listening, half-thinking.
The
professor was explaining the problem with standard interpretations when
Altair's brain caught on something.
Wait.
That's not right.
"—and
therefore," Professor Lennox continued, "we must accept that
information is lost during the entanglement collapse, which presents a
fundamental problem for—"
"Couldn't
you just collapse the wave function asymmetrically?"
The words
came out before Altair realized he was speaking.
The entire
lecture hall went quiet.
Two hundred
students turned to look at him.
Professor
Lennox stopped mid-sentence. "I'm sorry?"
Altair
froze. Shit. Shit shit shit.
"I—nothing.
Sorry."
"No,
no," Professor Lennox said, setting down his chalk. "You said
something about asymmetric collapse. Elaborate."
Altair's
mouth went dry. Every eye in the room was on him.
"I
just... if you treat the entangled particles as existing in overlapping
probability fields instead of discrete states, you could introduce an
asymmetric collapse that preserves information without violating causality.
Theoretically."
Silence.
Professor
Lennox stared at him. "That's... can you come down here and write that
out?"
"I—uh—I
don't think I can explain it on the board—"
"Try."
Altair stood
up slowly, legs shaking, and made his way down to the front of the lecture
hall. Someone handed him a piece of chalk.
He stared at
the blank board.
Come on.
Just write it. You know this. You KNOW this.
He started
writing. Symbols. Equations. Half-formed notation that made sense in his head
but looked like gibberish on the board.
After thirty
seconds, he stopped.
It was a
mess.
Professor
Lennox studied the board, frowning. "This is... incomplete. And the
notation is non-standard."
"I
know. I'm sorry. It made sense when I thought about it, but—"
"The
intuition is interesting," Professor Lennox interrupted. "But
intuition without rigor is just speculation." He erased the board with one
sweep. "Take your seat."
Altair
walked back to his seat, face burning, while two hundred students watched him
in silence.
He didn't
speak for the rest of the lecture.
Week
Five: The Library
Altair spent
most of his free time in the Radcliffe Science Library now, buried in
textbooks, trying to figure out how to translate what he understood into
something that looked like actual physics.
It wasn't
working.
He'd read
the same section on Hamiltonian mechanics four times and still couldn't write a
coherent problem solution.
"You
look like you're about to set that book on fire."
Altair
looked up.
Yuna was
standing there, holding two cups of coffee, a small smile on her face.
"Thought
you could use this," she said, setting one cup down in front of him.
"Thanks."
He took a sip. It was actually good coffee, not the dining hall sludge.
"How'd you know I was here?"
"You're
always here." She sat down across from him. "What are you working
on?"
"Hamiltonian
mechanics. Or trying to. It's not going well."
"Want
help?"
"I
don't think you can help with this."
Yuna raised
an eyebrow. "Try me."
Altair
hesitated, then slid his notebook across the table.
She flipped
through it. Page after page of half-finished equations, crossed-out lines,
frustrated scribbles.
"Okay,"
she said slowly. "So... you understand the concepts?"
"Yeah.
I can solve the problems in my head. I just can't write them down in a way that
makes sense."
"That's
actually fascinating."
"It's a
disaster."
"No, I
mean it." Yuna leaned forward. "Most people can follow the steps but
don't really understand what's happening. You're the opposite. You see
the answer directly but struggle with the formal process."
"Which
means I'm going to fail."
"Or it
means you're wired differently." She tapped the notebook. "This isn't
a bad thing, Altair. It's just... unusual."
"Unusual
doesn't pass exams."
"No,"
Yuna admitted. "But maybe we can find a workaround."
Week Six:
The Study Sessions Begin
Yuna started
meeting him in the library three times a week.
She'd bring
problem sets, and they'd work through them together. Altair would explain his
thought process—how he visualized the particle behavior, how he saw the
equations as geometric shapes rather than symbols—and Yuna would help him
translate that into proper mathematical notation.
It was slow.
Frustrating. But it worked.
Sort of.
"Okay,"
Yuna said, pointing at his notebook. "You're telling me you see the
solution as a... rotating field?"
"Yeah.
The probability density rotates around the potential well like—like a wave
wrapping around a cylinder."
"That's
actually beautiful. But you need to write it as psi-of-r-theta. Show the
periodicity explicitly."
"Right.
Okay." Altair wrote it down. His handwriting was still terrible, but at
least the structure was there now.
Yuna nodded.
"Better. See? You're getting it."
"I'm
getting it because you're translating for me."
"So?
That's what study partners are for."
Altair
looked at her. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing
what?"
"Helping
me. You could be studying with anyone. People who actually have their shit
together."
Yuna set
down her pen. "Because you're interesting, Altair. Most people here just
regurgitate what they're told. You actually think. That's rare."
She smiled. "Plus, you're not insufferable like half the physics
cohort."
"High
praise."
"I mean
it." She leaned back in her chair. "You're going to do something
amazing someday. I can tell, Starboy"
Altair
didn't know what to say to that, so he just looked down at his notebook and
pretended to be very interested in partial derivatives.
But inside,
something warm was spreading through his chest.
She
believes in me.
Nobody had
said that before.
Week
Eight: Midterm Results
The envelope
was waiting in his pigeonhole when he got back from lecture.
Quantum
Mechanics Midterm - Results Enclosed
Altair's
hands shook as he opened it.
Grade: D+
He stared at
the letter.
D+.
Below it,
Dr. Harrington had written: Your work lacks rigor and clarity. I strongly
suggest you reconsider whether this program is appropriate for your skill
level.
Altair
crumpled the paper and shoved it into his pocket.
He walked
back to his room, closed the door, and sat on his bed, staring at the wall.
I'm
failing.
I'm
failing and everyone was right. I don't belong here. I'm not smart enough. I'm
not good enough. I should just leave before they kick me out.
His phone
buzzed.
A text from
Yuna: Coffee later? I want to hear about the midterm!
He didn't
respond.
Another
buzz.
Yuna: Altair?
He turned
off his phone and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
I'm going
to fail out of Oxford in my first semester. I'm going to have to go home and
tell everyone I couldn't do it.
A knock at
the door.
He didn't
move.
Another
knock. "Altair? It's me."
Yuna's
voice.
He got up
slowly and opened the door.
She took one
look at his face and her expression shifted. "What happened?"
"I
failed."
"What?"
He pulled
the crumpled paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
She read it,
frowning. "This is bullshit."
"It's
accurate."
"No,
it's NOT." She stepped into his room, closing the door behind her.
"You understand quantum mechanics better than half the cohort. I've seen
you solve problems in your head that take other people an hour with a
calculator."
"But I
can't write it down properly. Which means I'm going to fail."
"Then
we'll figure out how to make it work."
"Yuna—"
"I'm
not letting you give up." She grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look
at her. "You're brilliant, Altair. The system is just bad at recognizing
it. But that doesn't mean you stop trying."
He wanted to
believe her. He really did.
But the
voice in his head was louder.
You don't
belong here. You never did.
That
Evening
Altair was
sitting on the bench outside the Physics Department, smoking, when someone sat
down next to him.
Not Yuna
this time.
A guy.
Around his age. Messy curly hair, glasses, wearing a hoodie with some band logo
on it.
"Rough
day?" the guy asked.
Altair
glanced at him. "Something like that."
"Let me
guess. Midterm results?"
"How'd
you know?"
"Because
half the first-years look like they're having existential crises right now. I'm
Harry, by the way. Second-year physics."
"Altair."
"I
know. You're the guy who solved the EPR paradox problem in Lennox's
lecture."
Altair
winced. "That was a disaster."
"Are
you kidding? That was LEGENDARY." Harry grinned. "Everyone's talking
about it. 'Did you see that first-year just casually rewrite quantum
information theory in the middle of class?'"
"I
didn't rewrite anything. I just said something stupid."
"Nah,
man. Lennox talked about it in his graduate seminar. Said your intuition was
solid, even if the execution was rough."
Altair
blinked. "He did?"
"Yeah.
He also said you're probably going to fail his class if you don't figure out
how to write coherently, but—" Harry shrugged. "—that's
fixable."
"I
don't know how to fix it."
"Then
let me help." Harry pulled out his phone. "What's your number? I'll
add you to the physics study group chat. There's like six of us—second and
third years mostly. We meet twice a week to work through problem sets. You
should come."
"I
don't know—"
"Dude,
you're clearly smart as hell. You just need people who can help translate your
brain into Oxford-acceptable format. That's what the group is for."
Altair
hesitated, then gave him his number.
Harry typed
it in and hit send. Altair's phone buzzed.
Welcome
to Physics Hell. - Harry
"There,"
Harry said, standing up. "First meeting is Thursday, 7 PM, my room. Bring
coffee and a sense of humor. You're gonna need both."
Before
Altair could respond, Harry walked away, already typing on his phone.
Altair sat
there for a moment, cigarette burning down to the filter.
Then he
pulled out his phone and texted Yuna.
I'm not
giving up.
Her response
came immediately.
Good.
Because I wasn't going to let you anyway.
He smiled.
Maybe I
can actually do this.