words

We’re sitting around in a circle, all the desks facing toward the center. Across from me is a girl who I’ve shared class with since Kindergarten. We don’t talk often. Most are shuffling their papers or waiting impatiently for something to do.

I sigh, push myself against the back of my chair, using the top of my desk for leverage, and crack my back. We’re reviewing four or five papers today. I read three of them last night. Hopefully the reviews will fill more time than expected and I won’t be put on the spot. I glance through the two I missed.

Teacher finally gets his things organized and comes around from his desk to sit in an empty student desk. I assume he’s trying to give the impression of being one of us, relaxed and friendly. The suit gives him away. He spreads papers out on the desktop and quickly chooses one.

He glances my direction; I’m up. I clear my throat. I have to give a brief explanation of my topic and why I chose it. I have no idea if the paper has been well received.

For the first time I feel people are reading what I’ve written. It’s an odd sensation. I’ve always written but only reference papers, the ones I felt no attachment to, have been read among a class.

I don’t have a writing style and everything I’ve written lacks narrative but it’s relaxing. There’s no metaphor, symbolism or message but putting things to paper has always organized my thoughts, been therapeutic.

I don’t know if I followed the assignment closely but I thought my time in elementary school was an important experience for me. I wanted to talk about my progression from grade to grade and those changes.

The stories within may not be completely accurate. I look at the faces around me and wondered if there are glaring mistakes. I smile awkwardly at the girl across, thinking she may call me out on some ridiculous detail. I tried to be as factual as possible but some memories are more clear than others.

Teacher pans his gaze around the circle. “I liked it, how you wrapped things up in the end. And it was funny,” said someone. “The stories are entertaining,” said someone else. Most of the comments are similar.

When one person refers to an event from second grade my face flushes. I’d urinated in my jeans because the teacher refused to let me in to use the bathroom. I wrote about it to demonstrate my stubbornness but have second thoughts. My cheeks begin to boil.

Most of the class laughs, even Teacher.

I lean forward, then back, uncomfortable with being watched through my words. The paper is longer than I want and doesn’t flow easily but people seem to like it. The comments slow. The students that don’t talk much or haven’t read it repeat earlier things said with slight variation. Teacher takes this as a cue.

He turns back to me, smiling. I keep the same smiling, awkward expression. I don’t pay close attention to his words because I’m sure my ears have caught fire.

He compliments my writing style, says he enjoyed reading it and mentions some parts of it for examples. He asks something about how I’ll translate this into reference papers without really asking a question. I nod back without saying anything.

The paper gets an “A.” The rest of the semester is filled with bibliographies, style guidebooks, references and research. These things bore me. The highest grade through the rest of the year is a “B-.”