“When you work all night on a homework assignment and then the teacher asks you something completely unrelated.”

More snickering this time from my comrades in the last row.

“Amusing. This is a story about two people so much in love that they each sacrifice their most meaningful possessions so that the other can benefit. Tell me then, Miss Wolley, does this story suggest a different theme than the one of irony?”

I took a deep breath. I felt calm and relaxed and didn’t feel taken offguard anymore. “This is a story about how being in love makes you stupid. It makes you think stupid thoughts and make stupid choices.”

He smiled and then put his face next to mine. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling made his mustache take on a blue tint and he came so close that I could see the small balls of spit that landed above his lip when he talked.

“Fascinatingly ordinary.”

He turned to the board and clapped it with an eraser. White dust exploded into the air and then he began to write. The class settled down to copy his notes.

He knew he’d given me the biggest insult of my life.

The hour passed in a blur, but even at the end my face still felt flush. Our last class of the day was gym. I got my things together and slung my jacket over my shoulder, but on the way to the locker room I stopped in the bathroom where the mirror confirmed that I looked like a newborn pig, pink and swollen. Within a few minutes, she was standing beside me. I didn’t want to turn to her so I just kept looking straight ahead into the mirror.

“He’s a jerk. You can’t listen to anything he says. I think it was good. The way you stood up to him,” Lavi said.

I was grateful for that mirror and for a minute I imagined that my reflection was a separate person. I could just let her do the talking. Unfortunately, neither of us had very much to say. “I need to get out of here,” I mumbled, as much to Lavi as to the Me in the Mirror.

“The day is almost over. We can do something after.”

“No. I mean now. I need to get out of here now.”

Lavi looked uncomfortable. She crossed her arms in front of her belly and methodically drew circles around the skin of her elbows.

“We can sneak out easily if we leave now. Leave it to me,” I said.