Oh, it was the worst feeling in the world—what could be more terrible?—to be the only person in the room with a secret as shameful as his. Gary stood alone as the crowd swarmed around him (is this what milling was?); some people knew each other, while others were comfortable talking to strangers; some people were comfortable keeping to themselves, while Gary was not comfortable at all. Did they know? Could they guess? Why was it that no one, ever, felt as lonely as he did? Why were they all so perfectly, happily normal?
The class took their seats, and immediately Gary knew he had picked the least desirable seat in the room. He had thought it was a safe bet, a desk halfway back on the far right side, but it was obvious as soon as everyone sat down that all the popular people had gathered on the left side, and he was as far from the epicenter of cool as he could have been without being in another room. He wished he was in another room. He sat miserably, waiting for the professor to speak so he could pretend that if only the professor weren’t speaking he would be socializing.
Finally a bearded man strolled in, several minutes late, infuriatingly carefree. He bustled with papers and his backpack hung partway open like a mouth. He discarded a pile of papers into the wastebasket and looked around for something important; he located his coffee mug on the podium and claimed it as if he had found a prize. He was supremely unconcerned that next to him, the class was rudely talking; why didn’t he yell at them for being so rude? At least maybe he could make them pair up and introduce themselves so Gary would know one person...but of course he did no such thing.
After an eternity of coffee gulps and paper rearrangements the professor stood where a professor should and announced unsteadily, “Hi, everyone.” It took a minute for the students to redirect their attention to him. How did they all become friends so quickly? Clearly it was too late for Gary to ever meet anyone—but not that it mattered, because even if someone did talk to him, he’d have to ignore them because they might find out his excruciating secret—
“Okay, let’s focus,” said the professor, sounding distracted, as if he didn’t really care whether they focused or not. “I have here some review sheets; I want to start just by assessing your knowledge of biology, it’s not a quiz, so don’t worry…”
He passed out a pile of worksheets to each row, licking his finger to peel off the right amount. Gary’s anxiety suddenly transferred to the paper the man was distributing—why am I here? I don’t know anything about biology, but I better be good at it—what if I’m not? I need to pass, I need to be the smartest one, if I’m the only loser in here I might as well be the smartest—
The review sheets finally reached Gary and he stared down at it with increasing dismay. He felt nauseated. An equation that required some knowledge of cell division swam in front of his eyes; he struggled to decipher how much each number signified, but as his alarm grew his sensibility diminished; he would never be able to read this, let alone complete it—
“Okay, just take…a few minutes,” said the professor, whose nervous mannerisms threw Gary off even more. How could he ever go to him for help? What if he already knew?
His anxiety swelled like a tidal wave until it pushed out against his skin and it couldn’t swell anymore without bursting; he thought he was going to be sick; it would all come pouring out like water, like vomit, how could he possibly explain that to anyone? Excuse me, biology makes me vomit—literally—I can’t do this, nothing is more embarrassing, I can’t do science, really, help me, please, someone tell me I don’t have to do this, I just want to act!
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