The Girl From Algebra Class

I started getting folded-up sheets of blank loose-leaf paper from a girl in my algebra class six years ago. I still remember the first one I got in Junior year. We were sitting in Algebra II, and it was the first class we'd ever had together. I'd caught her staring at me a couple of times throughout the week, and I thought maybe she had a crush on me. That’s such a funny thought now. It was so much further below the surface.

On that freezing February afternoon, the first piece of paper slid cleanly onto my desk in the form of a paper aeroplane. My best friend Clayton, sitting next to me, asked who it was from, but I said I didn’t know. The paper was slightly wet around the edges, stained with something black and purple and eye-burning eggshell. I opened it and decided that even though there was nothing written on it, it couldn’t hurt to read it anyway. So, I went about squinting at the white on white pictures, learning the strange invisible alphabet, watching the blue lines crash along the white, white, white, and tracing the little red line of sunset that ran between the hair-thick rivers, which I reasoned must have branched out from an ocean.

I followed the waters to that ocean, where I found The Girl From Algebra Class, lying on the sand below the high tide line. The long summer grass behind us caught the gold from the sun and could not help from rustling with glee. The Girl From Algebra Class and I lay there on the sand and waited for the tide to come up, and once I was thoroughly drowned, I made the trek back to the classroom so that I could finish the algebra lesson.

That day was a Friday, so there would be no more paper for two days. I forgot about the note, and to some extent, I forgot about The Girl From Algebra Class. The next weekend, I would remember, and tell my mom that I’d gotten a note from a girl, and she’d ask to read it, and when I gave it to her, she’d read it, and say, “Oh, how nice, honey,” but that weekend I went about my business. Clayton and I hung out on the swings at the park.

On Monday, I was late to algebra, but there was a new note folded on my desk, stained with the same matte shimmery ink. Different rivers ran through the blue lines this time, but they all led downstream to the same ocean again. The sun was frozen in the exact same deep corner of the sky, and the waves tossed themselves around, pleased with its red-purple paint job. This time, The Girl From Algebra Class spoke to me.

“Algebra sucks.” She said, and she started to make a sand angel.

“Yeah,” I said, and I began to take my shoes off so that I could feel the beach in my toes, “Algebra sucks. Where’d you find this place?”

“When I was little,” she said. “It’s changed a lot, obviously,” while she talked, she dug up a pebble and threw it into the water, “but the water was there when I was born. And I stay here. I’m here more often than I’m not.”

“It’s a good place,” I said, “There’s only good here.

The next day was a B day, and I didn’t have algebra class, but during my study hall, while digging around for a pen, I found another note tucked into the side pocket of my backpack. I guess The Girl From Algebra Class had snuck it in when I hadn’t seen her. At the beach, I found her ankle deep in the waves. I walked up next to her and let the souls of my feet soak up the water, and I let the seawater soak into my bloodstream, and I let my muscles loosen as my saliva began to taste like salt.

“Do you want to wade further?” The Girl From Algebra Class said, and when she saw me hesitate, she said, “It’s safe, I promise.” So, we waded up to our knees, and our feet dissolved. Then we waded up to our hips, and our knees dissolved. Then, following her lead, I collapsed into the surf and found that I could move around in the water with great ease. The Girl From Algebra Class pushed outward, and I pushed with her so that we could no longer see the shore. I began to sink, and I grabbed onto The Girl From Algebra Class’s shoulder for support. She held me tight, but she said, “It’s okay. It’ll take you back.” So, I let go, and as I sank, I saw all the light in the world filtering, marching in single file towards the tiny piece of the sun that dipped into the water.

After that, it was like that every school day. Sometimes we swam. Sometimes we crawled along the rocks that made up a long reef, some way to the north. There was a cave you could slip down into where everything was cool and dark. The Girl From Algebra Class and I liked to rest there.

By the end of Junior year, the sun was halfway below the water.

I didn’t see The Girl From Algebra Class for all of June. On the fourth of July, I was sitting on the swings at the park waiting for the fireworks, when Clayton came up to me and said, “That weird girl wanted me to give you this note, and he handed me a folded-up piece of loose-leaf. This one was extra tinted with the black-purple-white ink, as though it had been soaked in it beforehand. I waited for the fireworks to start before reading it.

Leaning my head against the chain of the swing, I let my eyes lead me along the rivers, across the cool sand, and to the shore, where The Girl From Algebra Class stood drawing shapes in the sand with her toes. The grass rustled like it always did. The reef sat happily in the water. The sun was in exactly the same position as when I left it.

The Girl From Algebra Class saw me and said, “Oh, good. He gave it to you.”

I pointed at the sun. “It hasn’t gone down?”

“No,” she said, “It only does that when you're here.” She paused and kicked sand at my ankles to show how glad she was that I was here, and then she said, “You use it up, I think.”

“Will night come if I spend enough time here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What will that mean?”

“It means nothing bad,” said The Girl From Algebra Class,  “It means that it will be dark out, and that maybe there will be a moon. It’s sunrise that will make this place go away, I think.”

“How do you know?” I asked. She shrugged.

“I don’t think it can ever be morning here. It was twilight here when I was born. This place just isn’t made for the long term.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

 The Girl From Algebra Class laughed. She said, “Wait till morning.”

She and I spent hours building a sand castle below the tide line, and just as the water swept it away, I reached out. I tried to touch her, but all I was touching were woodchips. I got up and bumped my head on the swing. It was dark out, and Clayton was gone. I walked home and got yelled at by my mom because it was one a.m. and where in hell’s name had I been.

The next day, Clayton told me he was moving states.

Senior year started, and on the first day, The Girl From Algebra Class found me sitting alone at my freshly Clayton-less lunch table. She looked different than she did on the beach, I realized. She was thinner here, paler. The Girl From Algebra Class plopped the notebook down on the table. It was thick and battered, and it seemed waterlogged by some wobbly and bright fluid: the stuff that dreams are soaked and developed in.

“I worked all summer,” said The Girl From Algebra Class, and as she said, “We can stay there the rest of the year, if we want.” I noticed that her eyes weren’t quite people’s eyes; they were like dog eyes or deer eyes or bear eyes when they know winter is coming. She said, “It’s senior year. The sun’s setting faster.”

I nodded. I ran my fingers along the cover of the notebook, and before I could stop them, my fingers began to read, and while they read, the notebook crumbled into sand and sank below the surface, and The Girl From Algebra Class and I were floating.

I spit out some water, and I blinked the salt out of my eyes, and I saw the beach in the distance, and I realized I had never seen that place so clear before. I had never seen anything so clear before. Then, I turned towards the sun and forgot it was even possible to see anything else.

“Hey,” I said to The Girl From Algebra Class, “Hey, where were we a second ago?”

“You were dreaming; that was all,” She said.

“Oh,” I said.

We drifted in the water for what might have been several hours or several days before we decided to swim ashore. It was dead low tide then. We wandered along the beach until we came to our cave in the reef. I pointed out towards the sun, halfway swallowed by the horizon line.

“What will the moon look like when it comes?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I’ve never seen it.”

Every fifth high tide, we swam out as far as we could, and when the tide had fully receded, then came up again, we would swim to shore. Every tenth high tide, we would lay on the sand and talk to each other about what we thought the moon was made out of and whether we were made out of the same material. I thought that nothing could be made from the same thing as the moon, but The Girl From Algebra Class was sure of it.

Every twentieth high tide, The Girl From Algebra Class and I sang at the sky and danced and danced and danced.

There had been 1,974 high tides before the moon came. When it did, the tide came so far up the beach that the dried grass was flooded, and we had no choice but to migrate far into the endless field behind the beach. The moon was half of the sky, and the half of the sky that it wasn’t was endless whirling points of concentrated dream-solution. Stars, I remembered they were called. I thought they looked like crumpled-up balls of looseleaf. 

On the 1,980th high tide, The Girl From Algebra Class and I lay in the field and watched the moon half of the sky reflected in the far-off waves. She took my hand, and our fingers passed through each other. I got propped up and hauled my weight closer to her, with my head right above her chest. My brain dropped through her ribs, and I let it be one with her heart.

The night moved fast, and on the 2,5000th high tide, The Girl From Algebra Class and I realized that the moon would have set completely before the next tide. We went to our cave in the reef one more time, and I kissed every rock and barnacle on its floor.

“Maybe we’ll still be here when the sun comes up,” I said hopefully, but The Girl From Algebra Class shook her head.

“It will go away. I know it will.”

“I love you even if it does,” I said.

“I know,” she said, “I love you too.” Then we got in the water and tried to swim all the way to the setting moon.

The water consumed the last of the moon, and the stars with it, and we floated far, far away from shore, staring up at the empty sky. The sun peeked up over one edge of the world, and I realized I was exhausted. I closed my eyes, and I began to sink, but The Girl From Algebra Class used the last of her ocean to raise me back into the light.

***

After the beach went away, The Girl From Algebra Class and I actually dated for the beginning of college. After a year, though, we decided that we were better off as friends. After another year, we decided we didn’t even like being friends very much. And went our separate ways.

Yesterday, I found those notes, including that notebook, in a shoebox in my basement when I was moving to my first apartment. They were all written in dark, clear blue pen; pretty embarrassing stuff.  They only actually mentioned a beach once or twice. Of course, I burned them all in the fire pit in my backyard, but as the ashes settled, I called The Girl From Algebra Class and asked her if she thought we were made of the same stuff as the moon.