Work Text:
A chalkboard full of secrets, it was like some kind of code
To tell the stars and planets how to fall and how to glow.
But when she turned to face the classroom there was chalk upon her nose,
Like the ghost of Madame Curie or a clown in women's clothes.
And the boys dismissed the work so quick, they laughed at her instead,
As just a girl who spilled some numbers from her head.
“Waverly Earp, you have five minutes to complete your presentation!” The professor called out the reminder from the back of the lecture hall.
“Yes, Dr. Moody! I’m just wrapping up now,” Waverly didn’t turn around to answer her professor, instead continuing to scribble furiously on the giant blackboard, which she had mostly already filled with equations and formulas featuring derivatives and the entire Greek alphabet. All semester she had been building her theorem to explain the formation of wormholes between universes, and this would be her crowning achievement; the only woman accepted into the astrophysics program, she had been fighting for recognition since day one.
And today would bring it.
“So, you see, everyone- Ψ proves that wormholes can form between universes and not only that, but are traversable !” She triumphantly put down the nub of chalk she had been writing with and turned around to face her classmates. Expecting the usual muted applause that came with class presentations, she felt her heart sink when instead she heard them burst out in laughter.
“Well, won’t you look at that? Princess can’t even use chalk right; she just tries to use it for makeup!”
Waverly hurriedly wiped a hand across her face, lifting it away to see a thick coat of chalk dust rub off of her nose. The boys in the class were still laughing, and it only seemed to get louder as Dr. Moody half-heartedly tried to calm them down.
“I bet you she just wrote nonsense she came up with last night!” Another boy shouted from somewhere else in class. Waverly was thankful to see the minute hand finally fall on the end of class time, and she spent not a second longer gathering her things and rushing out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Late night in the library in the basement by herself,
Alone amongst the books again, at home between the shelves.
She was searching for some answers when she stumbled in the dark,
On a girl with colored pencils and black eyes like question marks.
And they said hello in stereo, then they both just stood and stared,
As a normal sort of silence filled the air.
Waverly sat cross-legged in the library chair, tucked in a far corner of the library and hidden away behind the mazes of shelves. The clock on the wall above her ticked towards the 11th hour of that evening. This late at night, the lights in the library reverted to motion sensors- meaning the stock-still Waverly was soon left in only the dim light provided by the lamp next to her chair, and the moonlight coming through the window. She liked the peace, and the quiet, and the freedom to concentrate and lose herself in the numbers and symbols that danced across the pages and brought the stars and galaxies right to her front door.
And on this particular night, the darkness was the safe haven she wanted to let the tears fall from her eyes.
She had spent the entire semester on that project; hours upon hours in this very same chair, working late into the early morning hours working and re-working and re-working those equations and formulas to get everything perfect.
And in the end, none of it mattered. No one took her seriously.
The tears started to come more forcefully, with several drops splattering across the inside of her glasses. With a sniffle, she whipped them off and wiped the lenses forcefully with her sleeve. Once cleaned, she pushed them back onto the bridge of her nose and closed her copy of The Glass Universe .
She didn’t want to be in the library for a moment longer.
Waverly jumped up from her seat, sensation prickling back into her legs numb from sitting in one position for the past couple of hours. She hastily gathered her stack of books, backpack, and class folders and fast-walked through the lines of shelves. Feeling the pricking of more tears threatening to fall, she didn’t dare look up from the book cover staring back at her.
Which meant she had no way to spot the other girl sitting on the library floor, sketchbook out and concentration decidedly not on the people around her.
Her boot caught on the back of the other girl on the ground, and before she could register what had happened, she had lost her balance and tumbled to the ground with a small yelp and the crash of book and folders landing around the aisle. The other girl quickly closed her sketchbook and pushed it aside, gathering up the dropped books and trying to put the loose papers back into their folders.
“I’m so, so sorry! It’s so late, I didn’t think anyone else would be down here! I should have been paying more attention-”
“No, it’s my fault; I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Waverly cut off the other girl’s apologies as she adjusted her glasses back onto her face. She knelt where she had fallen, nervously brushing at her pants and shirt as if to shake off some dust. She turned around to take the books and folders back from the other girl who had gathered them up, but stopped with her arm outstretched.
Dark brown eyes were gazing back at her.
For a moment that seemed to stretch into minutes, it was just silence between them as they struggled to find their words again.
“Hello-” they both started at the same time, the other girl gently laughing at the awkward moment. She seemed to make a decision to herself and set the stack of books next to Waverly before proffering a hand to shake, “My name is Nicole.” She smiled.
Waverly gulped and took Nicole’s hand in her own to shake, “And I-I’m Waverly.” Just when the adrenaline rush from falling had faded away, it all seemed to come rushing back with one smile from Nicole.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The girl asked her what she studied and what she read so late at night,
The thoughts that filled her notebooks and the stars that filled her eyes.
But she said she couldn't tell her, she said she'd just get bored,
It was a story told in numbers not a story told in words.
But the girl just laughed and leaned right back, said "Try me if you dare;
Cause a story's when there's something more to share."
“Waverly...that’s a beautiful name,” Nicole smiled and dropped her gaze. Waverly did the same, if only the hide the blush creeping across her cheeks. A second later, she realized she was still holding Nicole’s hand and quickly let go, placing the hand instead on her stack of books in a manner she hoped looked casual.
“So...what books are so good they have you reading so late at night?” Nicole asked, craning her neck to read the title of the first book in the stack. She could only catch the author’s name- Stephen Hawking- before Waverly had hurriedly brushed them behind her and out of Nicole’s sight.
“Oh, they’re nothing- really. Really dense and dry,” Waverly tried to laugh the question off. She didn’t know why this stranger’s opinion mattered to her; maybe she just couldn’t take being laughed at one more time today.
Nicole smiled again and Waverly found herself wishing she would stop doing that.
“I have a hard time believing that, Waverly; I saw stars and planets on some of those book covers, and anything that beautiful can ever be ‘dense and dry’.” Nicole could see that Waverly wasn’t buying it as she rolled her eyes at the attempted compliment. Nicole held up a finger to indicate “wait a moment” as she reached behind her and got her sketchbook. She flipped open the pages to the drawing she had been working on so intently when Waverly had tripped on her. There was barely any white left on the page; it had been filled with inky blackness, speckled with blue, white, and yellow dots that seemed to perfectly mirror the stars outside. In the center of the page was a colorful nebula made of billowing purples, reds, and blues that seemed to glow on their own in the dim library light.
Waverly thought it was one of the most beautiful drawings she had ever seen.
“So you see-” Nicole broke through her wandering thoughts, “I think I’d love to know what you were working so hard on tonight.”
Waverly let out a nervous laugh and shook her head, “You wouldn’t want to hear the stories I was reading. You’ll just get bored. They’re stories told with numbers , not words.”
It was Nicole’s turn to shake her head, “Try me. Cause I believe that a story’s when there’s something more to share. And I think you have a lot to share.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So she shrugged and her hands began to speak ,
“Well, I’ve been researching the creation of wormholes-”
A dance of differentials and of poetry in Greek.
“-and for so long everyone thought the speed of light was a barrier but it isn’t and Ψ proves it-”
She solved for new dimensions and vibrations of the strings,
And she felt herself getting lost in the numbers, forgetting to be ashamed.
And from a single derivation all the worlds could rise to being.
And she hadn’t noticed the look in Nicole’s eyes that said she had taken her too.
She drew concentric circles with her finger in the air,
“-I can’t explain this, Nicole. But there are infinite universes like, like bubbles in a bath and they touch like this- here you make one I can show you better-”
And they glowed where there were nodes along the manifold they shared.
Nicole hoped Waverly could feel the same electricity that jumped between the multiverses she had had them create with their arms, where they touched.
To be in perfect symmetry, joined in all degrees,
“-everything is connected like this, Nicole, everything- and we’re all part of it…”
They touched in ways that no one else could see.
“Yeah...yeah we are,” Nicole whispered, feeling her mind race a mile a minute as she tried to process everything Waverly had said, everything she was feeling. All while that bespectacled face was now grinning so widely at her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The girl's eyes lit with fire, like milk and kerosene;
It was the smartest thing she'd ever heard and the hottest thing she'd seen.
So she grabbed her by the brainstem and she threw her to the floor,
And they kissed like their equations had never balanced quite before.
“So...what do you think?” Waverly could feel the nervousness and shame creeping back into her heart. Nicole looked overwhelmed- she’d probably gone right over her head and now she was weirded out-
“I think you are the smartest person I have ever met,” Nicole finally said quietly, unable to take her eyes off of the girl standing in front of her.
Waverly felt her heartbeat speed up exponentially with those words. Subconsciously, she bit her lips and felt herself wringing her hands together- something she always did when she was anxious. She wanted to let Nicole know how much her curiosity had meant- that it had meant the world- but she had lost her words again.
Luckily, Nicole gave Waverly another way to express herself.
As if on instinct, Nicole felt her feet propelling her forward, and in a matter of seconds her arms were wrapped around Waverly in a tight embrace, lips meeting a beat later.
And Waverly knew that this-this- was where the universe meant her to be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cause every lonesome thesis just describes the unobserved.
There's always one who'll fall upon the tail of every curve.
There's so many locks, so many doors, so many twisted keys,
Within the standard deviation from the mean.