“Give me a break,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “I might not get your ‘stories' but you don't get how incredibly hard this is for me. I wasn't born a genius like you, solving proofs while still in the womb.”

From the grit in my words, I expect Kwalla to ask me to leave, but instead she lays a spindly hand on my knee.

“I've worked hard to get here, Mariah, but what you say is partially true. Math is our first language, and we crave it when we're born like you crave your mother's milk. It is our first friend. Our first love. Our first everything.” Kwalla pauses, face riddled with uncertainty, then draws a black pouch from her backpack. She unties the drawstring and slips a large, tear-shaped crystal into the palm of her hand. Hundreds of facets speckle the ceiling with light, so beautiful. “I've never shared this with anyone,” she says timidly.

“It's amazing…”

“I haven't even started yet,” she says with a laugh, then leans close so I can get a better look. Foreign symbols are etched into each cut side of the crystal. “It's a yussalun, a calling piece. It's similar to your auditory instruments, except… well, it's probably easier just to show you.”

Kwalla holds the piece up in front of her like a trumpet, but several inches away from her mouth. Her thin fingers tap across the facets and the air above the piece crystallizes into an intricate fractal pattern, a living snowflake that blooms sideways and then stretches for the ceiling with all its might. Buds gracefully unfurl to the rhythm of an inaudible beat, stirring up a sense of wonder within me. Then the ice crystals slow, becoming thinner and more delicate until they peter out with a hopelessness that fills me with inexplicable grief.

“That was the equation we've been working on,” she says after we've both had a chance to catch our breath. “Now do you see?”

I nod, feeling wounded and vulnerable. There's a terrible rawness inside my chest that I wouldn't wish on anyone, and yet I crave more. I need more. “Do another,” I whisper.

“Fire!” I say, over and over through the hallways at the top of my lungs, figuring it will draw more attention than yelling “fractal!”