I made a sound and left again, taking the beach path so I could shout into the wind if I felt like it. I didn’t this morning, but I like having options. I like choosing what I get to do because it feels like people are always bossing me around. The only thing is, the beach path takes longer than just walking straight to school. It’s like turning the route into an obtuse triangle instead of a line from point A to point B.

Do you know what that is? It’s geometry, which I like.

I was late to school so often that the hall monitor didn’t blink. I left some books and the uneaten protein bar in my locker, which I don’t share with anyone because I don’t like when their books touch mine, and left a trail of sand like bread crumbs as I walked down the carpeted hallway to homeroom. The bell rang when I was about halfway to class, and Ms. Garrett didn’t say anything when I walked in.

All the other kids were already at their desks, most of them socializing. That’s a thing I’m not good at, probably because I don’t like chitchat—the word itself or the act of doing it.

I sat down at my own private desk island by the window and checked my TwisterLvr account again. Nothing new had happened since the last time I’d checked, which was disappointing.

“Phones away or they’re mine,” Ms. Garrett said. Some people groaned, but everyone made their phones disappear. Not literally: I don’t go to Hogwarts.

Ms. Garrett kept talking: “Let’s all work on something productive. That means you too, Anna and Daphne. Marcus! Settle down now.”

The room got quiet. Everyone took out homework, because first period is homeroom and that’s what you do. I opened Call of the Wild, which is about a dog named Buck who lives in the freezing Yukon. Sometimes I specifically don’t like books that other people tell me to read, but I liked that one even though reading it wasn’t my idea.

This lady—this specialist who was always checking in with me at school—popped her head into the room. Her name is Ms. Faust and she’s fine, I guess, except no one else has weird ladies checking up on them, so I pretended not to notice her and eventually she left. Ms. Faust was assigned to me or whatever, so it was her job to check in, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her anywhere near me.