"Oh no," he said, the chair's metal back pushing against his shoulder blades. One of the padded arms was torn and the flat foam undercoating felt like dry sponge cake. "I really don't mind." But Matt Traicheff was busy. He had exams to read and Eva Cirano was not an easy student. She never said much in Intro to Film, and as other students talked she often rocked forward at her desk and absently picked at bubbles of dandruff along the center part in her hair. He offered her a seat. "So. What's up?"

"You don't like me, do you?" Fat bracelets around her left wrist jangled, punctuating her words.

"Huh?" Matt arched, the chair clanked, and his feet rose slightly. Around him vibrated voices of colleagues, fellow teaching assistants discussing syntactical style, paragraphing, and the meaning of the lion's role in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" with their students. "I wouldn't say that," Matt said.

"Oh no," he said, the chair's metal back pushing against his shoulder blades. One of the padded arms was torn and the flat foam undercoating felt like dry sponge cake. "I really don't mind." But Matt Traicheff was busy. He had exams to read and Eva Cirano was not an easy student. She never said much in Intro to Film, and as other students talked she often rocked forward at her desk and absently picked at bubbles of dandruff along the center part in her hair. He offered her a seat. "So. What's up?"

"You don't like me, do you?" Fat bracelets around her left wrist jangled, punctuating her words.

"Huh?" Matt arched, the chair clanked, and his feet rose slightly. Around him vibrated voices of colleagues, fellow teaching assistants discussing syntactical style, paragraphing, and the meaning of the lion's role in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" with their students. "I wouldn't say that," Matt said.

"Most people don't like me. I'm kind of socially retarded, I guess."

Matt's cheeks burned along the upper edges and his eyes itched. She did make him uncomfortable, but he didn't dislike her.

"I never say the right things, so I don't talk at all. I have a hard time talking in class." She shifted a bulky backpack from the floor to her thighs where it dimpled her blue jeans.

It wasn't about saying the right things, it was about exploring ideas and venturing to find meanings in texts, in history, and in yourself, but Matt felt strange citing his philosophy, and his thoughts were complicated by an urge to stand up and place his hands on her shoulders and tell her everything's going to be fine, you'll get through this, I did, we all did.