The Last Prediction

In academia, we are taught that reaching a good theory takes months of observation and a mountain of data. Apparently, that’s wrong. Lyla had already formed hers in the time it took for the notification to flicker to life next to a bowl of stale popcorn, and it was the most accurate thing she had ever concluded.

As it turns out, a punch to the gut does not always require a fist. Sometimes, all you need is a follow request waiting on a screen that isn’t yours to feel it. It is the ultimate punchline.

Between the seat gluing foreign thriller movie they’ve been watching for over an hour and the game of crossing out their failed predictions on their joint checklist, her friend had not noticed her phone’s faded glimmer. And if there is one thing Lyla is good at, it is silent observation.

“Ugh, here goes another.” Sarah scratched the second to last prediction of theirs, the ink seeping through like a bruise. It is becoming clear that they based their entire theory on a character who turned out to be nothing but a mere hallucination. “I don’t think we’re getting the last one right either,” her friend commented with a surrendered scoff.

Obviously, it is a classic example of misreading a simple set of data, Lyla thought. They were overanalyzing because they wanted the plot to be more complicated than it actually was. She wondered if that was the psychology behind this genre of movies, something she’d definitely look into later. Sarah tossed the pen. It clattered against the face of the phone before settling on the couch between them. She picked it up, twirling it around her fingers and praying her friend’s phone won’t light up again to remind her of an anomaly she had filed away a long time ago. But the damage has been done, her mind already revisiting that draft.

Unlike the movie, Lyla’s own set of data was complicated and exhaustive, based on a four year mutual indifference.

The first class she took in college was with a professor she could only describe as ruthless. She was not the type of person to check the reviews of her professors before registration. As long as it fit to her schedule, she did not care. But, she’d come to learn why most students would sooner risk a delayed graduation than endure a semester in that lecture hall. At that time, Lyla was steady, with a keen interest in her life leaning only forward. She did not struggle with the professor’s complex jargon or the aggressive style of questioning like her peers did. It was not arrogance per se, but an aftermath of growing up in a strict high-achieving school.

Even though the academic damage didn’t touch her, she met the ruthlessness in another way. She would go home with the professor’s condescending monologues looping in her mind like a broken record. Lyla was a sensitive person in nature, but there was also a shadow of a guilty dissonance following her in the thought of outperforming a room full of people she liked. It labeled her as an imposter, so she began looking for any way to relate to the struggle, even if she had to construct the data to do it.

The professor had a specific way of returning grades. She would walk, deliberately and slowly to each person, and place the paper face down on the desk. And the longer it took her to move along, the worse it was. It was a small but calculated power move that Lyla decoded by the time of the second term.

She did not pause at Lyla’s desk. 24.5 out of 30, a mark lower than her first term paper. She flipped it back over before the person beside her could catch the number. Minutes into deliberating how much she needed to score in the final, she heard his voice.

It was not loud or aggressive, but unflinching. The kind of voice that made someone snap from their trance. He was two rows ahead of her, and his paper was faced up.

“I don’t understand the deduction on the third question.” No hint of an accusation or a complaint. Just a genuine inquiry, which made it worse for the professor.

Lyla watched her still, her stare sharp as she motioned for him to hand her the paper, her eyes scanning the concerned question. “The answer was incomplete.”

“But I addressed every point in the rubric.”

She cut him off curtly. “The grading is final.”

The student did not fold nor did he escalate further. She observed how he held the professor’s gaze for a moment, the way you would look at something that doesn’t add up, nodded briefly and sat back down with the paper back in his custody.

After class, her friends were already deep into their usual ritual, analyzing the professor with the same recycled remarks they exchanged every week. Lyla would find herself forcing a smile or imitating a similar joke to stay in place.

“Hey.”

She turned. He was closer than she expected, with his bag on his shoulder like someone who’s entirely sure of where they’re going next.

“Did you get the highest grade?” He was just asking in the same way he questioned the professor.

Lyla could have acted smug and said almost. She could have answered 24.5, why? She could have said anything to allow room for a working hypothesis.

“No.”

He nodded. “Okay.” And walked away.

She only turned her back when her friend said something behind her and she laughed at the right moment, and that was that. That was all of it. She didn’t realize how she condensed four years into a single syllable of her choosing, for no reason she could name back then, or now either.

She got an A minus in that course, and a string of them in the years that followed. Their paths did intersect several times after that. She’d walk into a class and find him already there claiming a spot in the front rows. Eyes would occasionally meet but no words spoken. She would sit in the back and retreat to her usual silence unless she’s called on to answer. Her professors knew her, but only when they passed on papers and noted someone with a high grade they didn’t know about. They’d ask her why she didn’t participate and she’d plaster a soft smile when she answered, “I just rather listen.”

He, on the other hand, gained quite a reputation among his fellow colleagues. Straight As, right hand always rising with an answer, smart notes on the margins as she once noted when she sat behind him, and a collection of perfectly worn vintage shirts, always appearing slightly more interesting than the rest of the room.

It was easy to build a case against him. She counted the numerous times she saw him conversing with a group of students, some strangers and other times friends, with the same unflinching confidence, and noted his seldom glance to the back row. Sometimes, her friends would ask him a question with her standing just behind them and he’d still not acknowledge her. Gradually, this omission became a confirmation. He had approached her once, received a monosyllabic rejection and deemed her unworthy of re-testing.

Lyla proceeded to take any course they’d share personally. She found herself participating in an unspoked competition, rules written, executed and results only known by her. She gleamed with pride when someone would comment about her receiving a higher grade. Once, reminiscing about college days with Sarah at a cafe, her friend recalled the comparison to which she found herself refuting, “maybe I was more competent in answering exam questions, but he was smarter than me.”

Her camouflage only worked on the surface. Internally, her notes were scribbled with contradictions. To her, he was like all the research ideas she’d written down in her notes and never pursued. Yet, she found herself spending nights mentally rehearsing ways she could approach him. Her hearing senses would intensify on the mention of his name. Her voice would jump a note higher than usual when she made sure to mention how annoying she found him.

Sometimes, as the 12 am haze of her phone’s yellow hue filled the room, she’d come dangerously close to hit send on questions she ached answers for: Why do you dislike me? Was I rude that first year? She wanted to explain herself, and tell him that she was not that girl anymore. The one he overheard that first semester engaged in trivial chatter about k-pop idols crushes and marriage and gossip with friends she fell out with later on. It was all a facade, a way to not navigate an open space alone. She wanted to tell him that she likes his shirts, and recommend him songs she thought he’d like.

But four years later, they graduated, and those questions, the whys and what ifs remained locked in her drafts. Over time, they became the only truth she had left, singular and unflinching. He disliked her plain and simple. A conclusion that allowed her to keep her dignity intact. With that, she closed that file. But, she hadn’t realized how it had been quietly affecting her the whole time, like those research ideas she’d scroll down to in passing, revisiting their potential, and each time, feel a subtle pull of something she couldn’t define.

Until the light flickered again on the cushion between them. This time, Sarah reached for her phone. Lyla did her best to not read every screw and muscle movement on her friend’s expressions. She moved her gaze onto the checklist, last prediction still standing.

She heard her friend’s surprised giggle, “Hey, look who requested to follow me.” She turned the phone to her, “do you remember him?”

With the phone in her grasp, Lyla stared at his profile picture. The same one he’s had for years: a blurry close up shot of a page of a book she couldn’t find. His bio, however, is different from the last time she saw it, his age in one line and job title below. After sensing that she stared longer than necessary, she handed the phone back to her friend, “yeah, I do.”

“He was kind of a loner right?”

Lyla kept her eyes on the last scene of the movie. “No. He used to talk to you guys all the time.”

“Did he? I mean maybe once or twice—” Sarah trailed off, as if she lost interest in her own argument. Then she perked up, “Actually I do remember he used to ask about you.” She said it like a suggestion made in a group discussion that got brushed over. “Anyway, this movie sucks.” She swiped the notification away, reaching for the popcorn.

Lyla stared at the black screen rolling the credits for a few seconds before picking up the checklist Sarah gave up on from the coffee table. They had gotten only one prediction right. The last one. The one she wrote. The one her friend clearly did not pay attention to.

Left-handed, she drew a small check beside it and set the notebook back down without a word.

In her field, Lyla quickly learnt that without acknowledging a correct conclusion, it ends up becoming a certain type of failure, a silent one.

If a theory only lives in your head, it is a dead one.

She knew that now too.