A Confession Workbook for the Introverted Observer

[First-person POV] Jiang Yan isn’t much of a talker, but he’s good at watching. He can tell whose eyes are puffy today and whose smile is forced. He sees it all, but says nothing. He has a notebook with a kraft-paper cover that he carries everywhere. Nobody knows about it. Every page is about the same person: Su Wan, the Chinese class representative in his class. He calls it practice. He hasn’t been able to say a single line in it out loud. On the day of the big cleanup, the wind blew the notebook off the windowsill. Su Wan bent down to pick it up and saw the two words at the top of the page. All she said was, “Oh.” After that day, the subject of his practice changed.