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SAJNI PATELAJNI PATEL
S
and dutifully took my mind off Papa by diving neck deep into
homework at my small corner desk.
Math. Ugh. The bane of my mortal existence. Contrary to
the stereotype that Indians excelled in math, calculus jumbled
into meaningless gibberish right before my very eyes. This
unintelligible nonsense worked when Mr. Strothers explained
it on the white board, but leave me to my own devices and I
was ready to burn all the math books within five minutes of
trying equations on my own.
I flipped through the pages, back and forth, and noticed
scribblings in the first chapter. They were from Rayna, who
had calligraphy-type handwriting compared to my chicken
scratch. Last fall, when she used to help me study Calculus I,
she’d drawn doodles to help me get math.
I traced my finger over them. Chapter one was a long time
ago. Her sitting beside me, giggling at me falling asleep and
Saanvi throwing tiny paper balls into my hair was eons ago.
So much had happened since then.
Despite my gnawing emotions, I looked through more of
her drawings. Some silly faces, some serious equations, but my
fingers stopped at the hearts. Hearts that represented us in a
sea of paisleys and coffee cups.
Friends forever, some said. The short dark hearts represented
Saanvi, the taller ones Rayna, and the pink ones with boxing
gloves were me.
Then there were some that read R + D = Life.
I groaned and erased them all. But no matter how hard I
rubbed, faint outlines of those dumb hearts remained. Against
better judgment, I roamed through my phone and stopped on
the last group chat I had with Rayna and Saanvi. I didn’t know
why I’d kept the text chain. Maybe as evidence?
Slow scrolling and random words revealed the evolution of

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