The Argument
An alarm sounded from somewhere far away, a jolting buzzer, a piercing reminder, burrowing its way into Leah’s brain. She jerked her head up, suddenly awake in the middle of her Critical Reasoning class. Dr. Rollins was patiently explaining the difference between valid and invalid arguments. Leah yawned and stretched her arms up into the air, attempting to shake off the permanent feeling of sleeplessness that had clung to her for the past several weeks. I need to lay off the partying, she reminded herself, but she also remembered that she hadn’t been partying very much lately. Why am I so tired? she thought sleepily.
“Yes, we have a question,” said Dr. Rollins, motioning to her.
“Oh, no…sorry, I was just stretching,” she explained, turning slightly red. Her boyfriend laughed as Dr. Rollins went on with the lecture. Eric had his arm around her waist, and he pulled her in closer. They had been dating for the past two years, and Leah could always count on Eric to be there for her…or at least be there to offer easy solutions to her problems whether she wanted him to or not.
“Leah, you need more coffee,” he informed her, stroking his long, red beard. Eric was two years older than Leah, and he infused everything he said with an air of great authority.
“No thanks,” said Leah, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I’m just tired all the time.”
“You need a Red Bull,” said Eric, running his hand slowly down his thick beard, as though even his most shallow advice took deep contemplation.
“Gross, no,” said Leah, “never mind.”
She could feel the warmth of his hand pressed against the exposed skin of her waist. Her short tank-top displayed her body for everyone to see. Eric liked the way she dressed. Leah did it for him, or at least she told herself she did. She wanted to be seen as beautiful even if that meant showing off from time to time.
“Modus Tollens,” explained Dr. Rollins, “means denying the consequent. If A, then B — not B, therefore not A. This is a valid argument; replace the variables with whatever you like. I don’t care what you fill it with; when it comes to validity, I care about the structure.”
Leah yawned again. She didn’t care about…whatever he was saying. It all sounded so confusing and abstract. When would she ever use this in real life? Besides, it was almost time for lunch.
“But to make a sound argument,” continued Dr. Rollins, “you must have true premises. If you accept the premises, you must accept the conclusion.”
Leah concluded that Dr. Rollins was not worth hearing, and she turned her attention back to wondering what she felt like for lunch.
“This is a class about critical reasoning,” persisted Dr. Rollins, “so…if there are any loser boyfriends or girlfriends in the class — you better shape up because they will figure it out.” Everyone in the class laughed. “Alright, that’s all for today. I’ll see you next Monday.”
Leah looked up at Dr. Rollins, startled out of her lunchtime daydreams. What did he just say? She glanced over at her boyfriend. Eric was grinning at her. She laughed but found herself forcing it.
“What did he just say?” she said out loud.
“He said that if you’re a loser girlfriend — watch out!” Eric laughed again. “I think he was talking about you.”
Leah forced a smile. “I don’t know…what did he mean by that?”
“Who cares,” said Eric, “do you wanna grab something to eat? I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me too,” she agreed.
What is wrong with me lately? She and Eric had problems, but she couldn’t name a couple that didn’t have problems. All couples, she reasoned, must overlook some deficiencies in their partner — otherwise, no relationships could function. Leah smiled with pride in herself for picking up something from that class. But how many deficiencies must she put up with? That was the question.
The two of them packed up their notes and left the classroom. With Eric’s arm still around her waist, they walked down the crowded narrow hallways together. They were on the third floor of the lecture hall, and they headed for the stairwell. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and he seemed a little tired and irritable today.
As far as couples go they didn’t talk very much. Eric was a man of a few words…well, he had a lot to say about himself, but he had very little to ask anyone else. This was not an uncommon fault, but sometimes Leah wished that he took a little more interest in her life instead of leaving it all up to her to start the conversations. Leah sighed as she once again thought up something new to say.
“Interesting class,” she offered.
“Yeah, but I pretty much know everything that he’s going to cover,” Eric said in a tired, irritated tone of voice. “I took a similar course at another university which was closer to Ivy League standards, so this is pretty much review for me.”
“Oh,” said Leah. “Well, that sucks, but the professor seems cool.”
Eric gave her a look. “Does he?” he asked and adjusted his square-framed glasses, “Maddy doesn’t seem to think so.”
“What?” said Leah.
“Is he your type?” Eric asked, ignoring her implied question.
“What does Maddy have to do with anything?” Leah persisted.
“I could probably teach the class,” Eric asserted while simultaneously avoiding Leah’s question.
She couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Maybe you should, then everyone could tell you how great you are,” Leah said.
Eric stopped in the middle of the stairwell and gave her a demeaning smile.
“You know, Leah, you can be pretty dumb sometimes.”
A hot jagged flame leapt up inside Leah.
“You can be really dumb too, sometimes,” she fired back automatically.
“What?” Eric asked, teasing her, clearly enjoying himself.
“I don’t want to say, or I’ll hurt your feelings.”
“Yeah…right,” he said in a demeaning, nasally voice. “Try me.”
“No.”
“You can’t think of one time,” said Eric, folding his arms and pursing his lips smugly.
“I told you, I’m not going to say…” said Leah, her voice trailing off and catching in her throat.
“Alright,” said Eric bringing his face in close, growing bigger as he kissed her, and she felt as though he was sucking the life out of her. The story of Dracula started to make a lot more sense. Leah buried these thoughts. She was just mad at him — that was all.
She pushed Eric off, partly annoyed, partly wanting everything to stop — to go back to when they first met, before he became the man or revealed himself to be the boy who stood there grinning before her.
“I think you just need some sleep,” Eric concluded, rapidly stroking his beard.
Without a word, Leah turned and walked away from him down the last two flights of stairs and stormed out the exit into a rush of cold air. She could hear his voice trailing pathetically behind her offering more sage advice, but it was unimportant.
Leah walked back to her dorm along the neat sidewalks that crossed and crisscrossed the campus. Outside the air was crisp and fresh. A strong breeze blew towards her, and she felt the coolness touch her bare skin. The leaves, many still green but some beginning to fall — burnished red, golden yellow, rich orange, and deep amber — lay scattered across the few roads that wound their way across the campus and over the freshly cut grass. She passed by massive new buildings that rose up across the campus like mini fortresses embedded firmly in the landscape. She traveled north over to her favourite spot, a small lake that lay on the outskirts of the dormitories. When she looked into the dark blue water it helped her to see things more clearly. At least nature understood its place even if she couldn’t understand herself.
Leah arrived at her dorm room and (after closing the door and locking it) crawled into bed. She always thought better this way, lying down, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe Dr. Rollins was onto something. If she thought about their relationship logically maybe she could figure out what had gone wrong, and maybe she could fix it. Because…after all, Eric was a good guy and they were made for each other, or at least that is what she told herself. They met in Biology class. It was her first year at GRCC; he came over and asked if he could sit next to her and —
The next thing Leah knew, she was fast asleep, but of course, she didn’t realize this until she was rudely jerked awake by the arrival of her roommate who came bursting through the door and seemed to be talking directly over her head to a boy who didn’t sound familiar.
Leah shook herself out of a hazy sleep and ran her fingers through her long blonde hair attempting to stir life into her tired brain. “Jenny,” she said drowsily, “is that you?”
“Leah…we need to use the room for a bit,” said Jenny.
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“What time is it?” asked Leah.
“It will just be an hour,” said Jenny impatiently.
“What, why?” Leah asked yawning, opening her eyes slightly. She saw the boy. “Oh, right,” she said. “Well…I guess I can grab a sweatshirt, and maybe I’ll go out for a while…”
Leah pulled the covers off and rolled out of bed.
Jenny and the boy that Leah didn’t know stood there tense and silent, anxiously waiting for her to go. Without a thank you or any note of appreciation from either of them, Leah left the room and closed the door quietly behind her. She sighed heavily.
Back outside, Leah headed for the lake. She wanted to be alone, away from Eric, away from everyone. She checked her phone to see if Eric had called. She saw that he had left two text messages. That was just Eric being Eric. He never called. The first message read:
“What was wrong with you earlier? Do you want to talk about it?”
The second read:
“When you’re ready to talk, you can find me in the dining hall. I’ll be with Maddy.”
Leah yawned. She had no interest in seeing him today or tomorrow, and she didn’t especially need to see him the day after that either.
Leah walked over by the lake and lay down on the grassy slope near the edge of the water. Lying back with her head against the cool grass and looking up high above her at the swirling pillowy clouds, she almost willed herself to be lost in the blue and white patterns and drift along, somewhere high above this tangled human mess. A stray thought interrupted her fantasy and jumped into her mind.
If Eric is a good boyfriend, then he will make things right with me. Lines and fragments from her Critical Reasoning class were slowly coming back to her and taking shape. Leah really expected all of that to be long forgotten by now, and yet here it was.
Eric is incapable of making things right.
Therefore, Eric is not a good boyfriend.
Leah laughed wearily at the bizarre logic of it all. But in a strange way she was also aware that she didn’t want him to make things right. No…that couldn’t be right. She must be insane. She and Eric were good for each other. They were just going through…a phase like all couples must go through. Like all couples, they shared so many…memories… Leah yawned helplessly.
Eric was touching her hand for the first time. He was a few years older than her, and Leah felt shy and awkward in Biology 1001. She didn’t know anyone, and he had been the first one to introduce himself. Later at P.F. Chang’s, Eric had impressed her with all of his sophisticated political ideas. Capitalism, according to Eric, was the only correct way to organize society. Leah felt the pressure of his lips outside when the moon was bright silver and full, perfectly rounded like a giant globe, growing immensely bigger as Eric held her, and she had half expected him to change into a werewolf. It was a such a strange thought — it must have been the beard. Eric attempted to tutor her in calculus but quickly grew impatient and had ironically called her ‘mentally challenged.’ She had thrown pages of her notebook into his critical, condescending face. According to Eric, Radiohead is the greatest active band of the 21st Century, and when she informed him that she had never heard of them, he told her that she was very ignorant. Leah saw Eric talking excitedly to Maddy outside in the pouring rain under the shelter of his umbrella. Stupid, stupid, how could she be so stupid? Eric came over to her dorm late one night and the fire alarm rang, and everyone had to stand outside in the bitter cold, feet shuffling to keep warm on the snow-covered road. Leah listened to him complain irrationally for over an hour. Somehow, she was to blame for the cold weather. She was also guilty of living in Meyer Scott Hall with its working fire alarms. Everything was her fault. According to Eric, Leah should hate herself.
When Leah woke up bright stars hung overhead. What time is it? She must have fallen asleep outside on the grass. She checked her phone. It was after midnight, and she had received four new messages. What does Eric have to say to me this time…
“I’m sorry about earlier,” read one.
“Hey, let’s talk,” read another.
“Hey, where are you?” read the next.
“What? Are you ignoring me now?” read the last.
Leah yawned again. Why didn’t he just call me if he really wanted to talk? She thought it over again and decided that she didn’t want to talk to him. Her stomach made a horrible groaning noise, and she felt desperately hungry but ignored the feeling.
She turned her attention back to the stars that burned like so many candles, all of them in time fading away. She too would fade away.
Why am I wasting my life? When she thought about Eric, she wanted to drown herself in the lake. She stood up and looked out over the dark still water. Like the stars, the water presented no answers, just the same questions. Turning away, she took out her phone and called Eric. He eventually picked up after several rings.
“What?” Eric demanded irritably.
“We need to talk,” said Leah.
