Seems like you're getting the bounds check, which makes sense, there's no real way to eliminate that with this simple example.

> I am trying to reach out to someone who is really good at Rust to see if there's ways to balance the scales.

If you use reddit, posting to /r/rust will be super helpful. If you don't, users.rust-lang.org is a decent spot. If you tweet, I can retweet from the rust account.