That was one reason I loved her.
Rina never treated feelings like they had to line up and wait their turn.
In science, I got paired with a kid named Trevor who spent ten minutes pretending not to know why I looked familiar.
Then he finally said, “My dad says people should help their neighbors directly instead of making everybody apply for stuff.”
I kept labeling the parts of a cell.
“Okay.”
“And my stepmom says if people need help they shouldn’t be embarrassed, because community matters.”
I wrote nucleus so hard the pencil snapped.
“Okay.”
He lowered his voice like we were discussing state secrets.
“So… which do you think?”
I stared at him.
He blinked.
I realized he genuinely thought this was a normal question to ask somebody between bacteria slides.
“That maybe when a kid is trying to pass science,” I said, “you should not turn her family into your dinner-table debate.”
He turned red enough to glow.
Good.
By fourth period, the counselor called me in.
Of course she did.
They always call kids in after everybody else has already made the thing worse.
Her office smelled like peppermint tea and printer ink.
There were baskets of stress balls on the shelf and a poster that said Your Feelings Are Real.
I believed the poster more than half the adults in the building.
She offered me a chair.
I took the hard one instead of the soft one on purpose.
“I just wanted to check in,” she said.
That phrase makes me want to run into traffic.
Check in.
Like I am a hotel people visit when they feel responsible.
“I’m fine,” I said.
She nodded like she had expected that.
