Joining the Storm

Chapter 1-2

From that day on, the patterns around Alex shifted. Instead of a safety net or a constricting trap, he saw a way forward. A way to move. His inner eye followed sidewalks, roads, even plants that leaned away from the lake he’d grown up at the bottom of.

Alex’s mind, and his heart, were set on a path to the southeast.

He got into the habit of keeping quiet and keeping his head down at home. That routine left him lonely, but he was grateful for the calm. At school, though, he embraced the opposite and excelled beyond his own vague ambitions of living somewhere else. His love of math and the sure answers it provided refined into a passion, as did his perhaps less endearing habit of taking apart everything mechanical he could get his hands on.

People in Alex’s life, even his parents, eventually stopped worrying about finding their belongings in pieces. He always managed to put things back together. And they often worked better than they had before.

His calculus teacher called him aside in the middle of his junior year. Ms. Powers was the best teacher Alex had had so far, challenging and pushing him beyond what even he thought he could do.

“So what are you planning to do once you get out of here, Alex?” she said. She was perched on her desk, swinging her sneaker-clad feet like a kid.

“You mean today? Or after next year?”

“I mean next year,” she said, smiling. “Today’s all up to you, though I know you’ll get your work done before Monday. What are your plans for college?”

Alex kicked at the tile floor, then tried to disappear into himself when his shoe made an obnoxious shriek.

“Community college for a couple of years, I guess. I don’t know after that. Maybe the math department down in Madison.”

“That’s a perfectly sensible plan,” she said. “And I know you can do better. Is any of that what you want to do? Do you want to teach?”

“I think it’s what I can do. I don’t love the idea of teaching, but we’re not exactly rich.”

Alex didn’t say what he was really thinking. He hadn’t had any big outbursts with his parents for the last couple of years. But he doubted sending their strange and overly observant son to a hugely expensive school right away was high on the list. Even with that big promotion his mother had earned after all.

“Well, I’d like to talk to a few people,” Ms. Powers said, “but I wanted to talk to you first. You don’t have to teach, Alex, though I think you’d be pretty good at it. I’ve seen you tutor more than one kid who was struggling. Do me a favor. Take some time over the weekend and look into engineering. With what I hear about the way you run circles around everyone else in your industrial shop class, you’d be a natural. The teachers are afraid you’ll go through all their projects before the end of the semester.”

“I am a little bored in there,” Alex said before he stopped to think. He felt his face and ears blazing hot. “Please don’t tell them I said that.”

“No, that’s what they’re telling me.” Ms. Powers was smiling, not scolding. “There are some fine schools here, but I have one in mind where a friend from my college days teaches.”

Alex closed his eyes, waiting for the odd shockwave moving through him to subside. He saw all the decisions, small and large, leading to this moment. Doubling up on math for the past two years. Asking for extra work whenever he could.

Making sure he got into this class, correctly rumored to be tougher than the other two.

He didn’t have to ask, but Alex knew he should. No one else knew about the patterns, the way motion and arrangement and confluence directed and shaped his life. That was best kept to himself.

“Where is it?”

“Chicago. Not too far from home, is it?”

Alex laughed, looking down at his feet to hide the quick tears in his eyes. The map resolved in his head, with his home at the bottom of a much bigger lake.

And himself in the middle of a much bigger life.

“Not too far at all, Ms. Powers. Not even close.”