“Yeah.”
He kept his eyes on the screen, like it was easier to ask the question if he didn’t have to watch me answer it. “That’s real?”
“It is,” I said. I leaned back against the edge of the desk, not closing the distance between us, just making it clear I wasn’t going anywhere. “You just don’t get to be all of it everywhere. Took me a while to figure out which parts of me were mine to keep steady and which ones I was adjusting depending on where I was standing.”
He nodded slowly, taking that in without rushing to respond.
“People act like you gotta pick,” he said. “Like you can’t be one way here and another way somewhere else.”
“They act like that because it’s easier to understand one version of you,” I said. “Less work on their end.”
He shifted his weight, finally glancing at me. “You ever feel like that? Like people only see part of it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
I let that sit between us for a second before I went any further, giving it enough space to be real without dressing it up.
“How you deal with it?” he asked.
I rubbed my hand along my jaw, thinking about how much of the truth to hand him and how much to let him get to on his own. “You learn the difference between adjusting and shrinking,” I said. “Adjusting is you deciding what toshow first. Shrinking is you starting to believe that’s all you’re allowed to be. You don’t let it turn into that.”
He held that longer than anything else I’d said.
“That’s hard,” he said.
“I know.”
He nodded once, like he had expected that answer and was relieved it hadn’t been anything cleaner.
“My thing for the project,” he said after a moment. “It’s getting long.”
“That’s the point,” I said. “You’ve got time.”
He glanced back toward the board, then down at the floor. “It’s not due for a minute, right?”
“Week before winter break,” I said. “You’re building it, not rushing it. I told you that.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“If it’s getting longer, it means you’re not skimming it,” I added. “You’re actually saying something.”
He let out a small breath that almost turned into a laugh. “I’m not ready for anybody to read it yet.”
“You don’t have to be,” I said. “Not today.”
He adjusted the strap of his backpack, grounding himself again. “I just wanted somebody to know it was there.”
I nodded once. “That counts.”
He looked at me then, more directly than he had since he walked up. “You sure?”
“I am,” I said. “Most people don’t even get that far.”
That landed. I could see it settle into him, not fixing anything, but giving it somewhere to sit.
“It’s still scary,” he said.
“It’s supposed to be,” I replied. “If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be yours.”
