Making the turn

Mathematical romance

I kept on playing memories in my mind back and forth until I had felt something wet on my cheek, it had begun to rain. I came back to what was happening at the present time, farewell, Salma and my realization of how important she was to me.

As the farewell had been held at our school, everyone ran inside the classrooms, trying not to ruin their expensive suits and dresses. As I was about to head indoors, I saw Salma jumping onto a table, she was having a panic attack. A teacher began to cry out, “Could someone help out here?! I think we need a doctor!”

Ali shouted out in reply, “No worries Ma’am! Jamil, here knows how to handle this.”

Winking at me, Ali then ran inside to protect his tux from ruining it to the extent of it being unwearable. Ali had always gotten my back. “Is it true jamil? You know how to handle this?” asked the teacher in a hurried voice. I responded almost instantly, “Yes Ma’am I do, you can go inside now, I think I can do this on my own.” “Are you sure?” asked the teacher, I nodded and she as well headed for the indoors.

I took a deep breath as I walked towards Salma, could I do this? Yes I could, for her that is. As I approached her, I wanted to take her hand, tell her she would be just fine, that what she was doing was not in her control, that she didn’t need to be embarrassed about herself. Things I wanted to say to my mother on that evening, most of all I wanted to say I was sorry for being such a coward.

In Salma’s case, touching her would only make her resist my help, after all, what was I to her? A batch-mate? A classmate? A peer? A friend? I didn’t even dare to feel an inch of her mildly fair skin scented with the smell of roses.

“Salma?” I said addressing her.

“Yes?” Salma replied, breathing heavily.

I shook my sweaty hands from trembling, this was it. “Salma, My love for you is like a concave function because it’s always increasing.” The reason I didn’t say it simply was because, A) I wanted her to think hard so that she’d focus on something else and B) If it weren’t for additional mathematics, I would never have gotten know her, I would have never loved her the way I did.

She was giggling at my words as if they were told for the sake of laughter, ignoring the possibility of the words to have been produced after hours of thinking, of them to have some deeper meaning, more truth than what it appeared to be.

I kept on going, “Like y=2^x... exponentially growing.”

I saw the playful look in her eyes, something I was unfamiliar with, I hadn’t expected her to react like this at all, “I want our love to be like the digits of pi, never ending, infinite. What do you think?” She asked raising an eyebrow.

“I think, I think you’re being insensitive!” I remarked in annoyance.

“Insensitive?” uttered Salma in confusion.

“Here I am confessing my love for you, putting my heart on my sleeve and you think I am joking around?” I shouted, only when I was done speaking my heart out did I realize, I had said too much. My face had gone all red, what did I do?

There was a loud clap of thunder, it had started to rain even more.

“Jamil, do you not see the hypocrisy on what you just stated? You think I’m being insensitive because you think, that I think you’re joking around when you said those pretty well thought out mathematically referenced quotes. Even though I replied you with a quote of the same nature which made you think I’m joking around.” Stated Salma.

That lady never failed to impress me, no one could match my intellect like she could. I began smiling like the idiot I was. “So...does that mean?” I inquired shyly.

“You know? Love doesn’t have to be as intricate as Additional mathematics.” Salma declared, shrugging.

“Yes, it doesn’t have to be but it is, I’m afraid.” I replied sighing.

“I beg to differ, love is the declaration of one’s admiration for something. Could it be any simpler?” Spoke Salma in denial.

“It’s easy to know what to do, it’s the ‘how to do it?’ that makes it the one giant mess that it is and if it really is that simple, then why didn’t you ‘fess up?” I said proudly, confident in my point.

Salma began to clap, “Touche! Bravo Jamil, why didn’t I think of that? oh wait! I did. Does a girl really look good expressing her love for a boy in the narrow minded society we live in? Especially when she belongs to a conservative family herself? The reason I waited for you to say something was because I knew that if you and only you were serious about this, you’d have the guts to face the music and tell me. I would never dare to break my parent’s trust just to establish a relationship with a guy I never saw a future with!”

I was so proud, of her and my own-self. I was proud of her because she kept her values and I was proud of myself for my decision, my decision to choose her, someone who had strong values like me but we were ready to bend the rules, slightly, just for this, just for our love, just for us.

“I love you Salma! You no longer need to build your own library because I’ll help you, I’ll help you build ours. And mark my words, I'll celebrate your birthdays and other special times with the extra zeal you deserve. I’m ready to establish a relationship with you and I see a bright future in our horizon!” I said on the top of my lungs, stretching my arms wide as I embraced the drizzling water droplets.

“Shhh, everybody can here you!” exclaimed Salma, eyes filled with the tears of joy.

“Exactly!” I replied winking at her.

“Okay, okay, okay. I love you too, can we now please go inside? It’s raining cats and dogs. I don’t want to be murdered by the hands of my mother for ruining her saree!” requested Salma.

“Fine, I’ll race you to it” I said playfully.

Salma sighed, “Jamil Shams Hasan, have you gone completely bonkers? That is the most absurd idea I’ve ever heard! Why dare to race when you know you’re going to lose?” Salma took off her shoes and held them in her hands.

“For the thrill of it, for the feeling of butterflies in my stomach.” I remarked.

I counted to three and so the racing began, God knows the amount of puddles we splashed in! We were alive, we were complete.