Chapter 7
For the first time, Nolan's world was cracked open by someone, and it happened in the most straightforward, almost brutal way.
The rebellion he took pride in and the defenses he had so carefully built felt as flimsy as tissue paper in front of Charlotte.
Instinctively, Nolan wanted to push back. He wanted to throw the handouts off the desk. He wanted to say something nastier to piss Charlotte off.
But he couldn't bring himself to do it under her unflinching gaze.
Those calm eyes read him completely, wordlessly signaling: "I've seen all your tricks."
That feeling of being completely exposed sent a sudden, inexplicable panic through him.
All he could do was pick up his pen and stare at the handout. "Yeah, the Law of Universal Gravitation. Isaac Newton came up with it. I know," he said, sounding a bit impatient.
"Good," Charlotte replied simply.
She tapped the first example problem on the handout. "Solve this problem in five minutes."
Nolan glanced at the problem. It was one of those classic Binary Star System questions. It wasn't difficult, but the math was pretty tedious.
He pursed his lips and started scribbling out the solution on a piece of scratch paper.
The only sound in the study was the scratch of the pen on paper.
Monica had quietly slipped out at some point, thoughtfully closing the door behind her. She was letting Charlotte call the shots.
Nolan's forehead was slowly beading with sweat.
He found himself unable to concentrate.
His father's mocking sneer, his mother's shrieking, and the cool pressure radiating from Charlotte tangled up, causing a chaotic mess inside his head.
Formulas floated in front of his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't piece them together.
"One minute left," Charlotte said, her voice icy and precise, like a stopwatch ticking in his ear.
Nolan's mind was even more scrambled. He threw his pen down in frustration. "Forget it!"
"Stumped by a baseline problem?" she asked. No mockery colored her voice, only genuine curiosity, which stung ten times worse.
"Who said I'm stumped?" He bristled, flaring up like a cornered stray. "I'm off my game today. That's all."
"Is that so?" She picked up his scratch paper and gave it a quick look. "Your logic was off from the very first step."
She grabbed her pen and sketched a quick diagram beside it. "In a binary system, neither star orbits the other. They orbit their shared center of mass. Your core model was flawed, rendering every calculation down the line useless."
Her surgical breakdown left no room for excuses.
Nolan's face flushed bright red. He wanted to snap back, but the words wouldn't come. Because every word she said was true.
"Physics isn't about memorizing equations." She put her pen down and looked at him. "It's about understanding systems and constructing logical chains. You have the raw brains for it, but your head is cluttered. Someone unable to master their own emotions will never master physics."
Nolan's head snapped up, his eyes locked on Charlotte, burning with defiance. 'Who does she think she is, lecturing me like this?' he fumed. 'Who gave her the right to analyze me like this?'
"What do you know?" he growled. "You know nothing about me."
"You're right, I don't," Charlotte admitted calmly. "Nor do I care to."
She flipped to the next page. "Your family and your baggage aren't my business. I'm here for one single purpose: to train you to command your own mind so it works for you instead of sabotaging you."
She tapped a monster of a problem on the new page. "This was the final problem at last year's International Physics Olympiad. You can't solve it right now, but three months from today, you'll knock it out like basic homework."
Her tone was calm but carried sheer authority.
Nolan stared at the problem, the dense symbols and diagrams looking like some kind of alien language to him.
But when he met Charlotte's eyes, for the first time, he felt his confidence waver. 'Maybe she really can help me?'
"Listen up." Charlotte leaned forward, bringing herself closer to Nolan. Her voice dropped, carrying an undeniable command. "From now on, forget about your dad, your mom, and your games. In your world, there's only me and physics. Got it?"
Nolan swallowed hard.
He stared at her face, so close he could catch the faint, clean scent of soap lingering around her.
It was so fresh and pure, nothing like the suffocating perfumes that always hung in the air back home.
Without even realizing it, he nodded. In that moment, it was like he'd fallen under some kind of spell.
She leaned back, satisfied, putting some space between them again. "Good. Now, let's start from the beginning. First, you need to learn how to clear your mind before you even try to solve a problem."
*****
The next two hours were the longest, strangest stretch of Nolan's life.
Charlotte didn't push him to solve any more problems.
Instead, she drilled him on pacing his breath, centering his thoughts, and filtering out background chaos.
It sounded kinda magical.
But when Nolan actually did what she said, the chaos in his mind really did start to fade away.
He could hear his own heartbeat. The grip of the pen felt solid. Behind the numbers, the elegant architecture of physical laws began taking shape.
By the time the two hours were up, Nolan felt like every last bit of energy had been drained from him.
But for the first time, he felt a kind of peace unlike anything he'd ever felt before.
"That's it for today." Charlotte snapped the book shut. "Tomorrow, I want to see you with nothing but physics in your head."
Then she stood up and walked out without another word.
Nolan sat alone in the empty study, staring at the sheet of paper covered in formulas and calculations.
For the first time, he realized physics could actually be something different.
It was like a scalpel, cutting right through all the mess and showing him the cool, logical order underneath it all.
Charlotte was the one wielding the scalpel. She cracked open his world in a way he couldn't wrap his head around. And suddenly, he saw a whole new possibility.