Number Theory Read Free

image - a room full of math men, yikes - so he was
probably busy.
    A week after the party, on a Friday night,
Henry knocked on my door again. He was excited and nervous. I
invited him in, except I really had no choice, because he sort of
pushed his way into my apartment. He had me sit on the couch and,
he gave me a presentation. He gave me handouts, and he had a chart
that he stuck to my wall with that blue, sticky stuff. He started
talking, quickly, passionately.
     
    Slowly, like stepping out of a fog, I
realized what was happening. Henry was proving to me,
mathematically, that we were meant to be together. He talked for
about forty-five minutes. Thankfully I was not chemically altered
in any way because, heaven help me, I would have seriously blacked out on this one. When he finished, he put down his laser
pointer - yes, he had a laser pointer he used to emphasize certain
points on the wall chart - and stood silently staring at me.
    When you’re younger, and no one wants you,
and you get rejected when you take a breath and risk it all to ask
a guy out because, if you wait around for him to ask you, you will
be a gray raisin in a rocking chair on the porch of the forgotten
old folks home…
    When he says no or, laughs, which is what he
did, you have a choice. First, you can take it, turn it into rage
and spend the rest of your days getting revenge. Second, you can
take it, hold it inside and let it fester then spring it on
someone, some unsuspecting, some undeserving, poor fool who has
taken the courage. Or third, you can forget about it. Take it in
stride and say, well, that’s what happens to me. Go home, cry into
your pillow, sing Beatles songs into a hairbrush, write in your
journal, know that it will build character and then, with time,
dates, back seat wrestling matches, fighting to protect the
sanctity of the bra and regions beneath, you forget about it. You
forget about it until it suddenly snaps back into the present at
the most inopportune time.
    That time had come. I wasn’t interested in
Henry as more than a friend. There was no spark when he kissed me.
He was sweet but, beyond that, there was nothing there. I felt
sick. He was a good man, a decent man and yet, I was not interested
in him romantically. I had no real reasons beyond I just wasn’t
feeling it. I recalled my moment of bravery, and how Stephan
Mercer… That was his name, I didn’t think I’d remember
that... Anyway, I remember him laughing at me when I asked him out.
He was a monkey of course but, right now, I admired him. He didn’t
care. He had no guilt, no remorse. He thought he was awesome and
so, when a not-awesome-enough girl asked him out, he just laughed.
I did not feel like laughing at Henry. I did not see Henry, this
moment, as a way of assuaging all my girlhood angst about men. I
was deeply, deeply sick about what I knew I had to say.
    He waited, smiled and then asked me what I
thought. I hesitated. I couldn’t figure out how to even start.
Then, he asked me if he should dress up when he presented his
findings. He asked if he should bring flowers when he gave his
presentation to her. He asked if he should do it at her place or
invite her to his place. It slowly dawned on me that Henry was
using me to rehearse asking out another woman . I wasn’t the
one.
    But wait… Why wasn’t I the one? What
the hell was wrong with me? I... I gave him a party. I kissed him.
Now, he was showing me charts and graphs, handouts and...
PowerPoint... thingies... for another woman. I felt sick. Another
kind of sick. A different sick from the sick I was sick before. I
held it together though, told him to dress nice but casual, bring
her to his place, serve her wine and some nice food. He would feel
more comfortable on his turf. He agreed. He packed his things and
started to leave. I was livid. I wanted to smack him and then, at
the door he stopped, turned to me and made it all better.
    He said that he had never had a friend like
me. He said that, if