One day, he walked past my desk and stopped.
‘That’s not from the book.’
I jerked my hand away as if I had been caught cheating.
‘Um, yes. I just… like this.’
He pulled up a chair and sat down next to me as if we were equals.
‘Do you like this subject?’
‘It makes sense. Numbers don’t care what your mother does for a living.’
He looked at me for a few seconds, then said, ‘Have you ever thought about becoming an engineer? Or studying computer science?’
I laughed. ‘Those schools are for rich kids. We can’t even afford the application fees.’
‘Have you ever thought about becoming an engineer? Or studying computer science?’
‘There are fee waivers,’ he replied calmly. ‘There is financial aid. Smart poor kids exist. You’re one of them.’
I shrugged, embarrassed.
Since then, he has been my unofficial coach.
He gave me old competition problems ‘just in case.’ I could eat lunch in his classroom, claiming that he needed help grading papers.
He talked about algorithms and data structures as if they were gossip.
Since then, he has become my unofficial coach.
He also showed me websites for schools I had only heard about on television.
‘Places like these would fight for you,’ he said, pointing to one of them.
‘Not if they see my address,’ I muttered.
He sighed. ‘Liam, your postcode isn’t a prison.’
‘Liam, your postcode isn’t a prison.’
By my senior year, my GPA was the highest in the class. People started calling me ‘the smart guy.’ Some said it with respect, while others considered it a disability.
‘Of course he got an A. He doesn’t have it easy.’
‘The teachers took pity on him. That’s why.’
Meanwhile, my mum worked double shifts to pay the latest hospital bills.
One day after class, Mr Anderson asked me to stay behind.
He placed a brochure on my desk. It was large, with a fancy logo. I recognised it immediately.
It was one of the best engineering schools in the country.
He placed the brochure on my desk.
‘I want you to apply here,’ he said.
I stared at it as if it might catch fire.
‘Yeah, right. That’s funny.’
‘I’m serious. They have full scholarships for students like you. I checked.’
‘I can’t just leave my mum. She cleans offices at night, too. I help out.’
‘I’m not saying it’ll be easy. I’m saying you deserve the chance to choose. Let them say no. Don’t say no to yourself first.’
And we did it half in secret.
After class, I sat in his classroom and worked on my essay.
The first draft I wrote was a cliché: ‘I like maths, I want to help people.’
He read it and shook his head.
‘Anyone could say that. Where are you?’
So I started over.
I wrote about 4 a.m. and orange vests.
About my dad’s empty shoes by the door.
‘The first draft I wrote was banal.’
About how my mum learned to calculate medication dosages and now collects medical waste.
About how I lied to her face when she asked if I had any friends.
When I finished reading, Mr Anderson was silent for a long time. Then he cleared his throat.
‘Yes. Send this one.’
‘I lied to her face when she asked if I had any friends.’
I told my mum I was applying to ‘some schools on the East Coast,’ but I didn’t say which ones. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her joy and then saying, ‘It’s not going to work out.’
The rejection, if it came, would be mine alone.
The letter arrived on Tuesday.
I was half asleep, eating velvet.
The phone vibrated.
The letter arrived on Tuesday.
Admission decision. My hands were shaking when I opened it.