ONE
WE WERE ONLY SEVEN
“No!”
Crayons scatter as my arm knocks them off the table, and my chair tips back and crashes to the floor behind me. Mrs. MacDonald’s hand lands on my arm as I push to my feet, but I pull it away and turn away from her. I won’t look at her. I already know what her face looks like. She’s not happy, and she doesn’t like that I’m doing this again. She thinks I should be doing better.
But no matter how hard anyone tries, I don’t do better. I just get louder.
“Silas.” Her voice is firm as I watch a blue crayon roll off the edge of the desk and fall to the floor.
Around us, the other kids murmur with their heads bent over their worksheets as they count, match, and colour. They’re all doing exactly what they’re supposed to.
Everyone else can do it.
But I can’t.
“Silas, sit down.” Mrs. MacDonald picks up my chair and sets it behind me.
I don’t move.
“No,” I say, crossing my arms and glaring at the worksheet on my desk, which is a mess of shapes and numbers that never make sense. Rows of cartoon apples beside empty boxes, asking me to count, write, and count again. But I don’t know what number goes where, even though she’s already told me how to do it three times.
It’s too hard.
Mrs. MacDonald sighs, then shushes the class as their murmurs grow louder.
“Come, sit,” she says to me, patting the chair. “We need to finish this. You can do this. We just need to?—”
“I said no!” I yell and turn towards the door.
“Silas!” she calls after me as I pull the door open and run.
My legs move faster than I can think as I run past the office and the cafeteria, and past teachers and adults who call after me. The ones who always say they’re trying to help, and that if I just sit still, listen, and try harder, it’ll get easier. But they don’t get it.
Reading just looks like squiggles, counting is noise in my head that won’t shut up, and writing feels like I’m trying to force my pencil through mud. And making friends is even harder. My body just wants to move, and my head just wants quiet.
Everything is too much. It’s too loud, it’s too confusing, and I don’t want to do it. Ican’tdo it.
And no one listens when I say that. No one hears me when I say I can’t do it.
A tall figure steps into the hallway in front of me, and I skid to a stop before I run into my principal.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Mr. Theriault says in a calm but firm voice as his hands land on my shoulders. “Where you running off to?”
“Stop it.” I pull away from him, so his hands fall from my shoulders.
But he steps forward to block the other side of the hallway before I can run past him.
My breath catches in my throat, and my legs beg me to run. My heart thumps as I blink fast against the heat behind my eyes, and my fingers twitch.
I’m trapped.
Tears well as I continue to blink and stare past Mr. Theriault. I need to move. I need to get away. I need to get out of here.
I don’t like being trapped.
“Silas, we can’t keep doing this, buddy,” he says. “You need to go back to class.”
