Henry’s accent is so distracting it takes me a full minute to register his insult.

I know he’s talking about our most recent chemistry finals. He’d gotten full marks as usual, and I’d lost a mark just because I rushed through a particularly difficult redox equation. If not for the two extra-credit questions I aced at the end, my whole rank would’ve slipped.

For a moment, I can’t decide which I hate more—redox equations, or him.

Then I see the smug smile now playing at the corners of his lips, and remember, with a new spike of resentment, the first time we stood on the stage together like this. I’d tried my best to be civil, had even complimented him on doing better than me in that history test. But he’d simply worn the exact same smug, infuriating expression on his face, shrugged a little, and said, It was an easy test.

I clench my teeth harder.

It’s all I can do to remind myself of the goal I made earlier: refrain from pushing Henry off the stage. Even if it’d be very, very satisfying. Even if he’s been the bane of my existence for pretty much half a decade, and totally deserves it, and is still looking at me with that ridiculous smirk—

No. Refrain.

We’re forced to stay in place anyway as a photographer hurries forward to take our photo for the annual yearbook.

Then realization washes over me like ice-cold water: by the time the yearbook’s out, I won’t be a student here anymore. No, not just that—I won’t be graduating in this auditorium, won’t have my name listed under the Ivy League acceptances, won’t be walking out these school gates with a bright future laid out at my feet.

I feel the smile on my face freeze, threaten to dissolve at the edges. I’m blinking too quickly. In my peripheral vision, I see the school slogan, Airington is Home, printed out in giant letters on a strung-up banner. But Airington isn’t home, or isn’t just a home for someone like me; Airington is a ladder. The only ladder that could lift my parents out of their dingy flat on the outskirts of Beijing, that could close the distance between me and a seven-figure salary, that could ever allow me to stand as equals with someone like Henry Li on a large polished stage like this.

How the hell am I meant to climb my way to the top without it?

This is the question that gnaws at my nerves like a starved rat as I return to my seat in a daze, barely registering Mr. Chen’s special little nod of approval or Chanel’s smile or my other classmates’ whispered congratulations.

The rest of the ceremony crawls by at a snail’s pace, and I sit for so long, my body frozen to the spot while my mind works in overdrive, that I start to feel cold all over, despite the stifling summer heat.

I’m actually shivering by the time Mr. Murphy dismisses us for the day, and as I join the tides of students pushing out through the doors, a small part of my brain entertains the idea that maybe this chill isn’t normal.