The room is buzzing.
Not with bees, but with lights and words and chairs scraping floors and pencils tapping and voices. So many voices. Some high, some low, some laughing, some yelling. They all mix together into a thick, soupy noise that fills up my brain until there’s no space left to think.
The teacher writes on the board. The letters move too fast. I’m still looking at the first one when she’s already on the next. Then she says, “Your turn.”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Everyone else does. They’re writing. They’re fast. My hands feel heavy and stupid. I don’t know how to start.
I look at the paper.
It’s blank. Like my mouth.
“Come on,” she says. “You know this.”
But I don’t.
Or maybe I do, but the knowing part is stuck behind a wall I can’t break.
A boy laughs. Not at me, maybe. But I think he is. I rock. I hum. My fingers rub the edge of the desk. I bite my sleeve. The teacher takes my pencil and says I’m not trying.
But I am.
This is trying.
