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something in you that deserved to be developed, not babied and coddled. If you think because you can say a few lines with a modicum of emotion this class is going to be easy, think again. It’s in here you’ll find exactly where your weaknesses lie. I’m going to strip you down to your bones then build you back up, layer by layer. If that sounds painful, it’s because it will be. But in the end, you will know every person in this room better than your own family. And above all, you will truly know yourself.”
    She looks at me as she says this, and I have a sudden, irrational urge to run from the room and never come back.
    “Right. Everyone on your feet. It’s time to get to know each other.”
    She orders us into two lines.
    “The rules are simple. The line nearest the windows asks their partner a question, and the partner must answer honestly. Then you switch. You’ll continue the pattern until the time runs out and you move on. The challenge here is to get to know as much about the other person as possible in the time given, and I’m not talking about name, age, and favorite color. At the end of this exercise, you should be able to tell me one interesting personal fact about everyone in this room. Your time starts now.”
    I turn to the person opposite me. It’s Mariska. She has dead-straight, pitch-black hair that hangs around her face. Her eyes are just as dark. She’s looking at me expectantly.
    Oh, right. I’m supposed to ask a question. It’s difficult to think of something. She’s kind of off-putting.
    “Uh … what do you do for fun?”
    “I cut myself. You?”
    I blink for a full five seconds as I process that. “Uh … I read. Why do you cut yourself?”
    “I enjoy pain. Why do you read?”
    “I … well … enjoy words.”
    For the next two and a half minutes we talk about books and movies, but I’m still hung up on the whole, “I hurt myself for fun,” scenario. When the time is up, I gratefully move on to the next person.
    The cycle continues, and I learn lots of interesting things about my new classmates. Miranda has known she was a lesbian since she was eight and thinks I have beautiful breasts. Lucas was arrested for armed robbery when he was sixteen because he was addicted to crack, but now he’s off the hard drugs and only smokes pot. A tall, ebony-skinned girl named Aiyah emigrated to the United States with her family when she was twelve after her grandparents and two uncles were massacred in their village in Algeria. Zoe met Robert De Niro in a deli two years ago, and she’s positive he hit on her. And Connor has two older brothers in the army who think he’s a fag for wanting to act. They beat him up at every family get-together.
    I feel like an idiot. A useless, vanilla-flavored waste of space.
    Before today, I’d never met a lesbian. Or a drug addict. Or someone who’d lost half their family. I’d been too busy being safe and comfortable in my tiny hometown, thinking I had it tough because my parents expected a lot from me.
    God, I’m pathetic.
    By the time I stand in front Holt, my mind is pounding from my new-and-improved inferiority complex. I look up. He’s frowning. Maybe his head hurts, too.
    “Does your head hurt?” I ask with a sigh.
    “No. Does yours?”
    “Yes. Why do I seem to have zero verbal filter around you?”
    “I have no idea, but feel free to fix that. Are you freaking out because compared to most of these people, you feel like a spoiled whiner?”
    “Uh … yes. That’s exactly how I feel, and thanks for putting it so eloquently. Is it that obvious?”
    He gives me a small smile. “No. But that’s how I feel. I just hoped someone else was, too.”
    For a moment, we’re united in our freakish normalcy. Our remarkable unremarkableness.
    “So, no deep, dark secrets you want to share with me then?” he asks.
    “No. Apart from accidentally stealing a Pooh Bear pencil sharpener when I was five, I’m completely average in every way.