[practice makes perfect]

The teacher says they're doing a gallery walk, and the anxious energy that always seems to be in Stan's stomach these day just starts to roil. He can't put his finger on why until the whole English class dutifully moves to another room, and then it's time to evaluate his options.

He can hear his teacher talking about how the book they're reading has all of these ties to surrealism in art, but the majority of his attention is on the color posters of paintings all over the walls. To most of his class, judging from groans and whispers, they're just stupid, boring paintings.

Stan--

Stan can smell the sewers and the greywater, and the cold seeping into his skin, the kind of cold that comes from being all alone when the monster comes. On the side of his face, the scars feel like they're on fire.

He's breathing too hard, and some of his classmates are looking at him, like they know he's not just a loser, that he's worse than a loser because he's all on his own and he's panicking over a painting, and they know, they know there's something wrong with him. Even if there aren't that many eyes on him that he can count, he knows they're all looking, they all know

Stan knocks over a desk and two chairs as he flees the classroom, sliding down the mostly empty hallways and sprinting for the doors. He doesn't know where to go, doesn't know where he's going until suddenly he's drenched in sunlight, tripping over himself onto grass, and with a strangled whine, crawling into some bushes usually meant for bird-watching.

Pulling his knees to his chest, Stan squeezes his eyes shut and waits to feel anything but cold and alone.