Being “the teacher’s kid” was like being trapped in a transparent shell. To her playmates who rolled around in the dirt, she seemed destined to be the very picture of “well-behaved” and “sensible.” But she couldn’t chatter and share snacks like the girl next door, and she couldn’t help quietly thinking that all that running and roughhousing seemed less interesting than the stories in her books.
She never went out of her way to join in, but she always watched in secret during recess: seeing whose jump rope flew the highest, listening to who was telling a joke she’d never heard. When someone happened to ask, “What’s the book you’re holding about?” her face would suddenly turn red, and she’d stumble over her words, unable to explain. Yet inside, it felt as if a little stone had been tossed into her heart, sending ripples of secret joy outward. This contradiction of “wanting to be seen but fearing being found out” clung to her thoughts like the noisy drone of cicadas on a summer afternoon. She felt different from everyone else, yet longed to prove that being different could still make her lovable.
So most of the time, she remained a lonely child with a book in her hands. The breeze blowing through the classroom window lifted the pages, and stirred the feelings she had never put into words. She realized that “understanding” and “being understood” were never the same thing.
