Again, he’s whispering, and again, it serves absolutely no purpose when I’m sitting less than five feet away, close enough to catch every word.

Evie’s eyes dart to me, clearly mortified, and I feel a swell of sympathy. Evie is the only student at Airington who’s had to repeat a year, but it’s not her fault. Even though she has a Canadian passport, she was never actually taught any English growing up. Once, I caught a glance of Evie’s history textbook, and saw Chinese translations and annotations written in the margins for almost every word, little question marks drawn over certain phrases, entire blocks of text highlighted to mark out parts she didn’t understand. I could almost feel the frustration pulsing out of those carefully marked lines.

The worst part is that Evie’s a genius, and not just in math and physics, but languages too. She’s in the most advanced Chinese class, and Wei Laoshi always gushes over her poems and essays and suggests not-so-delicately how he’d be happy if we could write with a tiny fraction of her skill, even goes so far as to compare her to Lu Xun—one of the most famous writers in modern China.

So, really, it’s only the English that’s the issue.

Maybe that’s why Mr. Murphy is whispering so loudly now. Why he’s speaking at half his usual speed, enunciating every syllable. He used to speak to me like that, too, when I first came to Airington, despite my insistence that English was my first language. Only after I aced five tests in a row did he seem to believe me.

Evie mumbles something back that I can’t quite hear, rises from her chair and quickly gathers up her things.

Once she’s left, Mr. Murphy turns to me.

“Can I have your test, Alice?”

I realize I’ve been gripping the paper to my chest like a lifeline, my knuckles almost white. I drop it. The pages flutter out like wings.

“Y-yes. Of course,” I say, pushing it across the desk. I know the wise thing to do would be to just leave it at that, scrape up the little dignity and self-esteem I have and walk away, but instead I blurt out: “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry—it’s really bad, I know it is, but I swear I don’t usually—I’d never—”

“Don’t stress about it,” Mr. Murphy interrupts, with a little chuckle. “Besides, I’ve taught you for almost five years now, Alice. Your definition of ‘bad’ is rather different from that of your peers.”

But rather than reassure me, the kindness in his voice—so sincere, and so unearned—only makes something inside me fissure. To my absolute horror, a pressure begins to build in my chest, climb up to my throat. My eyes blur.

Mr. Murphy looks alarmed. “Hey—”

It’s as if someone’s turned on a switch.

When I start crying, I can’t seem to stop. Short, violent breaths rock my entire body, a disgusting amount of tears and snot flowing down my face even as I try, desperate, to wipe them away. I cry so hard my chest physically hurts. My head feels light. I sound unhinged, like an inconsolable child, a tortured animal.