April
By: Tommy Paley
Tags: Literally Literary, Short Fiction, Character Development, Character, Fiction

April

Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash

April Nguyen loved math.

The numbers, the symbols and those beautiful moments when the numbers and symbols danced and sang and harmoniously weaved together to make magic.

The adding, the subtracting, the multiplying and the dividing.

Where other kids proudly and defiantly stated “I hate math” or “numbers make me cry” or “I refuse to count to 10 on principle alone”, even going as far as making t-shirts or tattoos or fairly professional-looking pamphlets stating as much, April gleefully and enthusiastically loved it. She’d exclaim “I love problem solving!” and “math is great!” and “pushing buttons on my calculator is quite a sensual experience!”, standing out like a sore thumb or just a regular thumb among a sea of fingers.

April just loved math.

Sure she was mocked and ridiculed and called everything from “nerd” to “geek” to “loser” to “nerd” (because the bullies didn’t have the most expansive vocabulary or the best memory or record keeping system as to what other insults they had recently hurled), but April didn’t show that she cared. “Don’t let them see you cry,” she’d mutter under her breath, “also, while you are at it, don’t let them see you clean your braces after enjoying a tuna on whole wheat as it’s probably not fun to see”. But, she could only keep it in for so long.

After another tough day alternating between calculating answers and both biting her tongue and pretending that what the other’s said about her didn’t hurt deep down — which it did — she’d race home from school to the safety of her house. That was April’s school experience — day after day of sitting on the edge of her seat, shooting her hand up first and eagerly participating all which earned her the glares, stares and, one time because his parents had a tree full of ripe fruit, pears of her classmates. It hurt each time she wasn’t invited to a birthday party or asked to join others for lunch or realizing that her teachers were her best friends, and she’d often cry, at the end of another long day, in her pillow or on her mom’s shoulder or, if fortunate, both while wondering if it was rude to mention how similar the two felt to cry on.

But these moments of emotional and psychological weakness were few and far between as she was strong and determined to be a success. Her parents had raised her to be both resilient and unbreakable (although they hadn’t fully tested the later). They had taught her to keep her head down — ”no looking at clouds all afternoon, April” — and to make them proud. She was raised by immigrant parents from Vietnam who had moved to North America for a better life for their children. April had two younger sisters, May and June, both who loved school as well. One of April’s tasks, when not doing homework, was to watch her sisters as her parents worked long hours to support the family. April was forced to be responsible at a young age and rarely, if ever, could goof off after school or go to the mall on weekends, like her peers.

April really loved math.

Her parents had only a few requests — work hard, don’t date before you are 20 and “get into a good school so that when we have social gatherings we can brag and show off and slightly humiliate our friends and acquaintances regarding you and your accomplishments as you sit quietly in the corner continuing not to look at boys until you are 20”. And April didn’t disappoint. She was diligent, eager and confident and consistently brought home stellar grades and, while in pre-k, some of the best macaroni-themed art work this side of the Mississippi.

Wanting so badly to please her parents, she realized at an early age that her future would involve numbers and, to a lesser degree, letters as, after a short lived experiment at the age of 9, it was just too confusing otherwise. April was a girl with a plan — ruing that “girl” and “plan” didn’t rhyme — and she kept her eye on the prize, not literally because her parents kept any and all prizes behind closed doors and because it was actually quite dangerous not to be aware of your surroundings.

April had loved her teachers throughout school often being seen as the “Teacher’s Pet” or, probably more accurately the “Teacher’s Pet’s Handler”. Her teachers, while appreciating her enthusiasm and joy for learning, often felt like they were “under a magnifying glass” and not solely because of that one time she installed that comically large magnifying glass from the classroom ceiling to demonstrate a certain level of self-awareness and self-mocking humour. The self-appointed spokesperson/timekeeper/whistle-blower for the class, she wanted to squeeze every ounce of learning out of every class akin to not wanting to let any juice be wasted from a lemon until her parents had to entirely stop buying lemons as she was becoming worrisomely obsessive and developing a bit of a skin condition.

And of all of the teachers she’d ever met, Mr. Bell, was her favourite. He wasn’t the brightest or the hardest working. He wasn’t the best dressed or the most punctual. He also wasn’t the cutest or with the most dynamic voice. Actually, whenever she spent too much time mulling over his pros and cons, she started wondering why he topped her list and considered revising her entire ranking algorithm. But there was just something about this always funny, obviously single, clearly caring, lifelong educator that she just couldn’t put her finger on. All she knew was that she looked forward to his class more than any other she’d had before, which is saying a lot, as April loved school. Mr. Bell was a real person who, like her, also loved math and, like her, was searching for others who loved it too.

April loved math with her whole heart and she always would.