Abigail laughs. “Wait, I never even asked you that, Cham. I just thought it was hilarious that you got kicked out of public school.”

I sit on my hand to keep it from twitching with muscle memory. “She was just being an asshat,” I say dismissively. Do you have a PhD in the field of neurological medicine, Ava-of-the-complicated-orthodontic-situation? Then maybe don’t spend half of our field trip giving my dad a dismal prognosis of Parkinson’s disease that ends with and then he’ll die!

I feel someone behind me, so I turn around. Brendan’s standing between our cluster of desks and the cluster of desks next to us. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when there’s an odd number of people: Someone gets left out.

“Here, join this group,” Evelyn says to Brendan, and they both walk over to us.

We move our desks around to make room for him, and Evelyn points at me. “Take it away, Cham. What’s the ethos of the time?”

“Um.” I preach to the high heavens about running socks on Twitter, but ask me to tell someone something in real life and I have laryngitis of the soul. “Compost?”

She laughs. “Okay, I’ll take it. Now, let’s go smaller. What’s the ethos of the senior class?”

“Work hard, play hard,” Marquis pipes up. He shakes his head, and his braids fall over his face.

Evelyn nods, then looks back at me. “How about you personally? What’s your ethos? What makes your life really good?”

I picture Gene’s lips. Making out.

“Cham likes running,” Abigail prods.

“All right, I’ll stop torturing Cham. What’s your ethos, Abigail?”

Abigail chugs her arms, and her fabulous boobs move around in her blouse. “Dance like a mother-effing—”

“I hope Mr. Garcia doesn’t walk by,” Evelyn interrupts. “Anyone else? We’re running out of time.” She eyes the clock and mutters something about the fallacy of linear time. “Has everyone had a chance to say something?”

“Brendan hasn’t gone yet,” Jared says, gesturing toward Brendan in a friendly way, as if he didn’t just throw him under the bus. “Did you want to say something, dude?”

Brendan undoes his elastic and fixes his man bun, which he grew over the summer. When senior year started, hardly anyone recognized him. I think it kinda suits him.

“My ethos is to get weird and stay silly.” He rubs his hands on his tutu, and the fabric crunches together. “I wanna heal the world with laughter.”

I look up from my desk and we accidentally make eye contact. His brown eyes are all parts confidence, no parts self-doubt. None of us say anything. The silence in our group is heightened by the noise of the groups around us packing up their bags before the bell rings.

“That’s beautiful, Brendan,” Evelyn says, clapping her hands and addressing the whole class before she lets us out.

“Good work today, ” she says. “We’ll keep going next class. Oh, and for the few of you still writing your college essay for rolling admission, I need a draft in two weeks.” She makes ominous eye contact with me. “I know rolling admission doesn’t have a specific deadline, but I do need a finished assignment from you. Can the people who signed up to tutor please raise their hands?”