I raise my head and when the professor calls on me I ask “Are these real numbers?”
She pauses and narrows her eyes, hand frozen in mid-motion on the chalkboard where she’d been writing out the tables for the various ratios she was explaining. “How do you mean?”
I stand up and go to the front of the class, gesturing to the board. “Do these numbers actually do what you’re saying they’ll do every single time, or are there situations where it changes?”
I look back at the rest of the students. “See, I’m not afraid to ask the stupid questions for the rest of you. You’re welcome.”
The professor gives me a look. “Why would they change?”
“I don’t know. I’m not good at math. Numbers don’t make sense to me.”
There’s a shift in her posture and attitude towards me, genuinely interested and concerned. “Do you have trouble understanding or writing the actual characters?”
I try to assure her that I am not dyslexic, that I actually have a facility with writing and language… but I wake up before I can finish.
—
I lay there in the early morning dark, mildly frustrated that I wasn’t able to let her know that it is just the abstract nature of math that I have trouble with and not some kind of disability.