I did badly on the placement exam and dropped from the honors class into a regular one. On the first day of school, an unfamiliar boy borrowed all my history textbooks. The student on classroom duty had copied down the wrong schedule, so I could only stare blankly through an entire lesson.
He came back to return the books during break and smiled apologetically. “I read the schedule wrong. Sorry about that.”
That was the first time my heart fluttered.
Only later did I learn that his name was Lu Zhao, not Lu Chao.
The character “Zhao” in his name held a past I had never been part of.
Theme: Someone afraid to get close and someone afraid of hurting others eventually learn the same thing: how to speak up.
