Deep cadmium red flows from my brush onto the canvas, emphasizing the bridge of my subject’s nose with a stroke that says he’s staying put. There will be no kissing in my artwork. Kissing is gross. Never mind that I’ve never touched my lips to a boy’s. Just the thought of mingling saliva and someone else’s steamy breath makes my tongue quiver.

No kissing.

When my attention turns to the female subject, however, my certainty wavers. I’ve given her sweeping eyelashes and highlighted her high cheekbones and full, pouty lips—two traits I personally lack—with swirls of cyan, deep violet, and cobalt. She’s beautiful, mystical even, but the spark in her eye isn’t right. She looks too . . . optimistic? Dreamy? Naïve?

That’s what it is. She looks like the kind of girl who foolishly thinks her first kiss will taste like cherry Chapstick and cotton candy.

With a growl, I shove my stool away from the easel and slam my paintbrush into the cleaning jar. Cloudy water, the color of leftover milk after a bowl of Lucky Charms, splatters the canvas, sending tears down the girl’s cheeks.

This is pointless. No matter how many times I adjust my subjects, open or close their eyes, change the angle of her face, or reshape that lock of hair on his forehead, I can’t get it right. I’m competent with gnarly trees, jaunty flowers, and high-fantasy landscapes. But humans? It’s like I’ve never spent a day with a member of my own species.

Don’t get me wrong. I interact with people. It’s not like I don’t suffer through school every day with them. I don’t have to get up close and touchy-feely, right?

Whatever.

My gaze falls to the camera lying on my desk where I dropped it last night after a slew of lifeless stills, and my frustration huffs into the room. “Is there any future for someone like me, Jesus? All I want is to be good at something creative. Anything that says I’m not a hopeless freak who will never have anything useful to contribute. I need inspiration, Lord.”

Something touches my neck—probably a curl of my unruly crow-black hair escaping the bun atop my head. I flinch like someone dropped a snake down my back and smack it with—

My hand freezes against my neck, immobilized by a sudden gooey sensation. I peel my palm away and—“Ack!”—a blob of deep violet paint is smeared across my skin. I grab a paint-speckled towel and frantically rub my palm, my neck, my palm, my chin—because suddenly it feels like there’s some there too—my other hand, my neck, my palm again. I rub until the purple has burned into red. If I could rub my skin off, I would.

Get it off, get it off, get it off—

A shadow falls over my canvas. I whirl, towel in hand, and find my grandmother studying me with a concerned expression.

“Babcia,” I say, breathless. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I said your name many times.” Her gentle Polish lilt fills my room. “Everything is good? It’s almost time for school.”

“It is?” I glance at the clock on my nightstand. “Shoot.” I rub my neck once more, then tear my paint smock over my head and hurry into the adjacent bathroom, where I wash my hands and scrub my neck with a washcloth until the skin stings.

“That’s unique painting,” Babcia says from my room. “I love the colors.”

I blot my skin, then force myself to set down the towel, even as my fingers twitch with the urge to pick it up again. “It’s lousy,” I grumble, stuffing a loose curl into my bun with a bobby pin and adding a hundred more to head off further escapees.

“Why you say that?” Babcia asks as I return to my room.

My gaze skips over her face and lands on a blank space on the wall behind her. “There’s nothing special about it. Nothing to set it apart.”

Like me. Nothing good sets me apart.

“It’s not finished,” she says. “You’ll find your way, kochanie.”

I shrug and stuff my camera into my backpack. My fingers tingle with the feverish desire to rub my stinging neck once more. I take out a cloth and focus on cleaning my glasses. “I need a little more inspiration.”

“Inspiration?”

“My art doesn’t feel exciting anymore, like I’ve run out of good ideas.” I put my glasses back on. “But we’re talking about our big semester project in photography today, so maybe that will lead to something.”

Babcia hands me my backpack. “Dziadek is waiting in the truck. Have good day at school.”

“Bye, Babcia.” I bounce down the stairs and out of the farmhouse into the warm, September air.

#

The Running of the Bulls in Spain. New Year’s Eve in Times Square. The Rose Parade in Pasadena. Take your pick. For a person with SPD—Sensory Processing Disorder—the school hallway is akin to any of these. The beginning of the semester is always the worst. Different classes, different teachers, different routines. Plus, after having the summer off, I have to desensitize to the chaos all over again.

I keep my eyes on the shoes of the girl walking in front of me and close my hand over the spiky fidget ball in my skirt pocket as I pick my way to fourth-hour chemistry. I can handle the bulls better if I don’t make eye contact with them. By the fourth week of school, I’ve usually found my groove again.

It’s been four days.

A pair of burly guys, the kind you see hunched in the center of the football field, race past. One bumps my shoulder, and the impact jackhammers my nerves. Every bump that follows feels like a blow from a billy club. I pick up my pace.

The science room is a welcome reprieve from the hallway. I hustle to the table I share with Gracie Ramos. If I wanted to burden someone with being my friend, I’d ask Gracie. She’s quiet, doesn’t wear perfume, and isn’t prone to loud outbursts. Even her laugh is gentle, like waves lapping a shoreline.

She offers a polite smile when I sit. I give one in return. That’s the extent of our exchange every morning. I don’t even know what color her eyes are.

Our classmates shuffle in, laughing, scraping chairs against the floor, plopping books on tables. I focus on laying my books out in the same precise formation I create every single class: notebook resting atop my folder, laptop to the left of the folder, two pencils with freshly sharpened points parallel to the bottom of my laptop.

Yet another reason I like Gracie. If she notices my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, she never mentions them.

I glance at the clock and cover my ears exactly three seconds before the bell rings. Even then, I flinch at the horrid sound.

Mr. Baumgartner closes the door and scans the class. “Morning, folks. We’re supposed to have a new student today, but I don’t see—”

The door flies open and bangs against the wall like a firecracker. I gasp, drawing every eye in the room for a second. But only for a second because, in the next moment, a boy struts in like this is a movie set and the director just called “Action!”

He hands Mr. Baumgartner a slip of paper. “Sorry, Teach. I got lost on my way from journalism. Seriously, this school is heee-uuuuge!” His voice is as loud and rattling as his entrance. A few girls giggle, probably because our school most certainly is not huge. I loosen my grip from the edge of the table and draw in several square breaths—inhale, hold, exhale, hold, inhale, hold, exhale, hold.

The paper crinkles in Mr. Baumgartner’s hand. “Sage Jacobi from Virginia, welcome to chemistry in Wisconsin. I trust you’ll be on time moving forward.”

“You bet, sir. Way to make like a proton and be positive.”

Someone behind me snorts.

I move my focus to a blank spot on the wall, silently repeating the Bible verse my therapist had me memorize.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

Sage passes by on his way to an open seat, his blaze-orange shirt subverting my concentration. I close my eyes, jumping when he drops his books on his table with a loud smack.

Tell me he’s not going to do this every day, Jesus.

By the end of chemistry, Sage has pretty much established his position as class clown. Three times, he disrupts the lecture with a lame chemistry joke, producing waves of laughter and forcing Mr. Baumgartner to call us back to order with his loudest voice. I repeat John 14:27 in my head countless times, struggling to block out the stimuli. By the time the bell rings, my limbs are stiff.

I hate class clowns.

Seriously, Lord. I know you made me this way for a reason, but did you make Sage the way he is too? Or is that a learned habit? I hate boys who think they’re funny. I scurry to photography, keeping my head down. Okay, I shouldn’t say hate. But I very strongly dislike that trait in males. What is it about boys that makes them think that’s cool?

Peace, beloved. He’s My child too.

Whatever. As long as he’s not—

Someone behind me shouts to a friend down the hall. I gasp and rush into the photography room, hand clasped over my rattled heart. Three more weeks. In three more weeks, I should be desensitized enough to at least handle getting from one class to another. I scurry toward my seat . . . and freeze.

A boy is sitting on my stool. A boy in an orange shirt.

No. Boys who wear blaze-orange shirts and make bad chemistry jokes can’t like photography. I need this class.

“Yo, Welles. Excuse me,” a girl behind me says.

I jump out of the way, agitation flushing every inch of my skin. My classmates shuffle in, their chatter and movement stalling my mental processing. I close my eyes.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give—

“Hi, how are you?”

With everything else happening around me, I almost overlook the voice. I blink and find Sage watching me with an open expression.

“Is this your seat?” he asks.

“Yes.” I focus on a funky machine off to the side. Mr. Mann is also the industrial arts teacher, so woodworking tools and welding equipment crowd the edges of the room. Many of the classrooms in our small school are multipurpose.

Sage slides onto an adjacent stool just as David Li and Gracie Ramos take their usual places at our square table. “Better?”

No. I need that one to stay empty.

I can’t get myself to move.

“Hey, it’s the dude from Virginia.” Has David’s voice always been this loud? He introduces himself and Gracie, and the two guys start joking around. I feel myself falling backward into a dark tunnel, my internal escape when the outside world becomes too much.

A cautious hand on my elbow sends a pulse through my system. Mr. Mann gives me a look of practiced patience and gestures toward the table. “Rhapsodie, please take your seat.”

That unlocks my knees. I march to my stool and pull it a few inches farther from Sage before sitting down.

He notices. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to steal your spot. I can see why you like it. It has a nice view of the drill press.”

I dare to look at him. Bad idea. His smile sparks an explosion of heat inside me that splotches to my cheeks. The bell blares, and my hands fly to my ears too late. Mr. Mann distributes packets of paper, and the shuffling, combined with my classmates’ chatter, overwhelms my ears.

Sage offers his hand. “I’m Sage.”

I blink. When did he pull his stool around to my side of the table?

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

The packets land on our table. Sage lowers his hand and takes one, then leans in close. “This is the part where you’re supposed to tell me your name.”

My other classmates know not to get into my personal space. Granted, not everyone remembers why anymore, but enough rumors have floated the hallways of our small-town high school that even underclassmen usually avoid me. I stiffen and lean away.

What did he ask? My name. “Rhapsodie.”

“Cool. I’ve never met a Rhapsodie before, and I’ve met lots of people.”

Mr. Mann gives instructions, but I can’t concentrate, and Sage doesn’t seem to care. I try to focus on our teacher’s lips so I can pick his words out of the mix of sounds, but Sage’s proximity overpowers my ability to do that.

“You must be the shy, smart girl.” Sage’s stage whisper assaults my ears. “I saw you in chemistry, all focused on taking notes.”

What is that odor? It smells like a chemical imitation of pine needles, like Sage bathed himself in deodorant. My head throbs. I press my fist under my nose.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Moana with her hair pulled back? Or who’s that girl on Encanto? You look more like her because of the glasses. Those are sick glasses, by the way. If I wore glasses, I’d want pink lenses too . . .” Sage babbles on, his voice low enough to escape Mr. Mann’s notice as he wanders between the tables, still lecturing. Their words blend into an incomprehensible mush.

Once, in elementary school, I left class and hid in a storage room, and no one could find me. The school authorities called my mom, then the police. That earned me an IEP—Individualized Education Program—and access to the sensory room whenever I feel overloaded. I don’t have to visit the high school sensory room quite as often, but Sage won’t shut up, and our teacher’s instructions so far have gotten lost in the chaos. My head pounds. My fist tightens.

I raise a hand in front of Sage’s face. It’s rude, I know, but I can’t be polite when my senses are about to explode.

He chuckles. “Sorry, I forgot. Smart girl needs to pay attention.”

This is when he’s supposed to lift his stool—not slide it—and gently set it down on the other side of the table, giving me back my personal space. But he doesn’t move. He and his chaos stay close. A piece of gum swishes between his teeth, and every few seconds he swallows. I look at Gracie to see if she’s bothered by this, but her full concentration is on Mr. Mann.

I close my eyes. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

An erratic thumping commences. Sage’s foot against the stool. David doodles in his notebook and his pencil grates across the page. Gracie yawns. Sage scratches his scalp. My fisted hands tremble in my lap. What was that verse again?

When Sage’s fingers roll across the tabletop like it’s a piano, my nostrils flare. He says something that makes both Gracie and David snicker. Why doesn’t Mr. Mann tell the kid to shut up and sit still? Can’t he hear all the noise he’s making? Maybe Sage has ADHD. Or he’s a sensory seeker, another type of SPD. Or he’s having a seizure. He should not be sitting next to me. A volcanic pressure builds in my chest. Overhead, the industrial lights go nuclear. My pink lenses are supposed to help with photosensitivity. Why aren’t they working?

I scan the room for a clean space to focus on, but Sage is blocking the only corner not cluttered with scrap lumber, wood shavings, and half-finished carpentry projects. He leans closer to scratch his leg. If he licks my arm, so help me, I will put my fist through his face.

When he sits up again, his foot slips and bumps my chair. My spine turns to iron. Panic closes in, sucking me under, every little sound and movement threatening to morph me into a rabid animal. Mr. Mann’s voice slurs into unintelligible noise while Sage’s fingers bounce across the table like gravel. The industrial smell of the room causes rebellion in my stomach.

I can’t take anymore.

I shove away from the table and scramble out of the room.