“I’m all right,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

“That’s what I’m here for. Want to stop and have a snack?” Proctor Dan throws a peanut in the air and catches it in his mouth. He has an array of food laid out in front of him. Trail mix, chips, Doritos, even Fig Newtons. The munchies, I think.

He tips a container of sour cream and onion Pringles toward me, and I reach in and grab a couple. I open my lunch bag and take out apple slices and a small glass tub of homemade almond butter. I offer him some in return.

“Nice. Brain food,” he says.

Obviously, this is how everyone should take the SAT. With a kind, likely high dude like Proctor Dan suggesting you take a beat and share some snacks. With extra time to breathe through your fear and the perfect pick-me-up prepared by Chef Cristof.

The whole thing is way more humane.

—

My mom takes me out for ice cream after the test. We go to Scoops, the same place we used to go after doctor checkups when I was little, the reward for getting shots. She doesn’t eat any, of course, not even a sample, but I get a double to self-medicate. We sit outside at the picnic tables, and I tip my head back as if to absorb the healing powers of the sun. The test took me six hours, and despite my snack breaks and lunch, I feel undernourished and vitamin D deficient. As if the testing center spun and baked me via its fluorescent lights, like a rotisserie chicken at the supermarket.

“So how’d it go?” my mom asks. I admire her restraint. She waited a whole forty-five minutes—until I had a treat in my hands—before starting her interrogation.

I want to shrug off the question. I don’t want to tell her the truth: It was a disaster.

“I was reading about this school the other day: Colorado Mountain College?” I tell her instead. “I bet they don’t ask for the SATs. They have an adventuring program.”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“Me neither,” I admit, and take a giant bite of mint chocolate chip. I can sense an ice cream mustache forming on my upper lip. I’m feeling childish and churlish, so I leave it. “But I like being outside and adventure and Colorado. I’d probably get to snowboard a lot.”