On Wednseday, Tess paired up with Isaac in Spanish to practice vocabulary words by writing a short story. It was a challenging assignment to do all on their own, but partnering with Isaac made it bearable.

"Y el dentista tomó el helado?" Isaac suggested.

Tess wrote the sentence down. "I think tomar is for drinking, though. Maybe it would be comío, for 'to eat?'"

Señora López was walking by at that precise moment. "Comió," she corrected, emphasizing the final syllable of the word.

"Oh. Gracias, Señora," said Tess, erasing what they had written so she could make the correction.

"No hay porque." The teacher moved on to the next group of students, and Tess looked back at Isaac, shrugging her shoulder.

"I'll never make sense of these accents," he grumbled. "If I can just pass this class, I guess I don't care."

"You should try to learn it, though. Maybe you'll have to take Spanish in college."

"That's a depressing thought. They complicate everything with these weird marks."

"I don't know—you can make extra money if you're bilingual," said Tess. "My dad had a bilingual receptionist, and he paid her more than he would had if she only spoke English. She could translate for him when he had Spanish-speaking patients. He really liked being able to help more people that way."

"Whether it's useful and whether I want to study it are two completely different topics. I don't see myself becoming a bilingual receptionist anytime soon." Restlessly jogging his foot, Isaac looked at their story again.

Tess thought he had a point—what was useful was rarely interesting. And Spanish was hard. As cool as it was to be able to understand and speak another language, the process of learning one was torturous, in Tess's perspective. She took comfort in the fact that Isaac seemed to have the same level of difficulty as she did with the subject; he tended to look lost in class at the same times as Tess did.

He certainly looked lost now. "K, so what's he do next?"

"I don't know," Tess replied with a shrug, returning her attention to the fictional dentist they had created. "Maybe he gets a cavity?"

"Do we know that word?"

"I think we know cavity." Tess opened up her notebook to the day's vocabulary lesson, which had been focused on professions, and found the word. "La caries dental, I think?"

"Carry-ace? Is that plural? How do you say insta-cavity? He just ate this ice cream thirty seconds ago."

Tess giggled. "That's a good point. It's potent stuff."

Isaac grinned, snatching the pencil out of her hand so he could write, Y despues apericio una insta-caries dental. "Right? Good enough."

"Good enough." Tess pulled her pencil out of his fingers and added accents where she thought they belonged. And so their Spanish period progressed. They devoted grueling thought and discussion to each sentence they added to their story gradually adding layer upon layer of exciting complexity to their poor dentist's life. Tess enjoyed the assignment more than she typically would have with Isaac as her partner, and by the end of the class, she realized she'd actually had fun.

In SAT prep, they focused on some math refreshers that Tess found easy, and at lunch, Jacqui provided a thrilling update from her anatomy class. The first critters had been introduced: worms and grasshoppers. This turn of events provided plentiful fodder for conversation for everyone, including comparisons between the lunch menu and the internal organs of the unfortunate bugs.

The bell rang, signaling that the second half of the day had arrived. Her books under her arm, Tess went to her English classroom. Ms. Keene was seated at her desk, going over some papers. She looked up as Tess entered the empty classroom. "Good afternoon," she called. "Tess, a quick word?"

Looking over her shoulder at the other students filtering into the classroom, Tess hesitated. She set her books down at her desk and then walked up to Ms. Keene. "Hi."

"Here you go, hon." Ms. Keene handled Tess a small white envelope. "Just wanted to get this to you before I forget."

"Thanks." Tess took the envelope and turned it over in her hands, looking at it curiously. She headed back to her desk and sat down, and she tucked the envelope away into her folder, not wanting to open it up when class was about to begin.

It wasn't until after the final bell of the day had rung that she opened the envelope—and even then, she waited until she was at her locker.

"What's that? Love note from Isaac?" Jacqui asked, peeking around Tess's locker door.

"We just started dating," Tess said. "Don't you think it's a bit early for love notes?"

"I'm just remembering the heart emojis he put around your name, that's all."

"This is something else." Tess had pulled out the folded paper Ms. Keene had put into the envelope. On it was written: Miguel Velasquez. 804-555-4423. Text 5PM or later to meet & make arrangements. Good luck. — Ms. K

"Everything okay?"

Tess smiled at Jacqui. "Yeah, everything's fine." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Ms. Keene is setting me up with a tutor for English."

"Oh, cool!" Jacqui slung her backpack over her shoulder and gave Tess a bright smile. "I was curious about the tutoring program here—have you gone yet?"

"No. I think she's organizing something special for me so I can have after-class hours."

"Will you let me know how it goes? I'm thinking of trying to find a tutor to talk about some of the things that will be hardest for me on the SATs."

"That's a really good idea, Jacqui." Tess tried not to let on how relieving it was to know that Jacqui, who she could tell was an extremely accomplished student, was also thinking of getting a tutor. "I'll let you know what it's like."

"You're the one with the good idea. I hope it helps alleviate some of the—you know." She shrugged a shoulder, and Tess was reminded with a pang of the episode in the bathroom and the intense anxiety that had led to her panic attack. But Jacqui moved on as if all was completely normal. "Good luck! Hey, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"'Night, see you tomorrow!" Tess waved as Jacqui headed off down the hall, then finished gathering her books. She slammed her locker closed and shouldered her backpack, tucking her tutor's contact information into her pocket and heading out to meet her mom.