The Ordinary vs. The Other

The scraping of chalk against the blackboard was a sound I’d always found comforting, a rhythmic punctuation to the otherwise droning lectures. Today, though, it felt like a thousand tiny drills boring into my skull. Mrs. Davison’s voice, usually a gentle hum, seemed to echo from a vast, empty cavern, her words about the quadratic formula dissolving into the swirling mists of my recent nights. I blinked, trying to focus on the neat rows of numbers, but my gaze kept drifting to the window, to the impossibly blue sky, a sky that felt more real, more *mine*, than the peeling paint of the classroom ceiling.

“Alex?”

Mrs. Davison’s voice jolted me back. Her brow was furrowed, a familiar expression of concern that had become increasingly frequent in her interactions with me. “Are you with us today?”