Some people are harder to understand than others, was all that Drew thought about as his psychology teacher paced around the class. It was quite annoying if you asked him, but you wouldn't... because anyone hardly did. He was the loner that sat on the back of the class, that you — not only you, but everyone —  would only know his name to ask for two things: the time and the homework.

Playing with his brown bangs falling in his eyes, Drew tried to focus on the teacher. It's just that everything the old man said was so damn obvious. He did, indeed, read the syllabus months ago, studying ahead, but still. This was supposed to challenged his mind, not bore it. Since he was a child he knew he was different. Better, somehow. More intelligent, more efficient... better. The reason he chose this course was pretty obvious to him, but then again, what wasn't?

Drew Barry was notoriously known as "the genius". He skipped two years in high school and was bound to graduate from uni with twenty years old. One of his projects, a complex study about the link between people minds and actions were posted on the National Geographic magazine and soon he was a famous prodigy. Everyone knew him.

But that's not what he wanted. All Drew really wished and hopped for was to know. To know why he was so different from everyone, why in his mind he was great, while in theirs, he was a freak.

Why was it wrong to be smart? He was just trying to understand.

The bell pulled him from his thoughts. As always, in the end of the class, the professor called him in and asked him to wait. Probably to say that he needed to pay more attention to the class or that he should see the faculty counselor if he wanted to talk to someone, something like that.

Professor Jones was a fairly old man, right about his mid-sixties, with white hair and green, young eyes. Too young for someone his age.

"Drew Barrymore." the professor said, making Drew flinch.

"Drew Barry, sir." he mumbled quietly and lowered his head.

"My apologies, Mr. Barry." the boy nodded and waited for his teacher to continue. "I guess you already know what I wanted to talk about."

Once again Drew nodded. "Look sir, thanks for worrying, but I don't think I need to see the counselor again, I am perfectly fine." Mr. Jones laughed, wrinkling his eyes. Those disturbingly young eyes.

"Oh boy, you are more then fine." he said. "I don't want you to go to the counselor."

"No?"

"No." the professor got up from his chair, nearing Drew and grabbing his head. "That old wanker would ruin your amazing head."

"My head?"

"Your head. You amazing brain that works nonstop."

"W-What?" the boy was scared. Trapped in his professor's eyes, that juvenile green staring into his soul... no, wait. Into his brain, looking for something that wasn't there.

"You think I don't notice?" he laughed again. Somehow, the wrinkles just didn't match with the eyes. It was wrong. "I see the way you are always bored in your classes, always with that superior look on your face, all of that because you already know."

Freeing himself from the iron hold the professor now got on his face, Drew stepped back, getting some distance between him and the crazy man. "Know what?"

"Everything!"

In a heartbeat Mr. Jones was holding him by the shoulders.

"Let go of me!" Drew screamed, pushing the old man back.

The professor didn't even budge.

Drew eyes were shooting the room, looking for an exit while his brain worked, that satisfying buzz going on his head, the feeling of his thoughts running, searching a logical explanation to this madness.

"I know nothing." Drew whispered and it was true. He knew nothing about what really mattered, just facts. And sometimes, that wasn't enough. "Please, Mr. Jones, let me go."

He hugged his backpack tighter to his chest. Drew Barry could absolutely not lose that bag.

"I am not stopping you." the professor said, resting his hips on his table. "You could've left all this time, but you didn't... do you know why?"

In his mind, Drew was searching for an answer, calculating probabilities and trying to predict movements of aggressive manner, but his body was frozen. He couldn't move, much less talk.

"Do you, Mister Barrymore?" a smirk played on the old man's face, ticking Drew off.

"No, I don't know." it pained him to say that, but it was true, he did not know, he didn't understand.

"You didn't left because you are liking this." he said. "That proud, warm felling in your chest thanks to the recognition you are finally getting... from me."

Drew's breath hitched.

"No one see you for what you really are, Drew!" the green eyes were wild, focusing all of his fictionalized glint on the frightened nineteen year-old boy hiding behind desks. "They all see you for what you show, for what you allow their mundane minds take in... a freak. They don't understand you like I do, Drew Barrymore."

"You are crazy." and with some hurried steps, Drew was at the door.

"If you leave," the professor said. "you'll never know why."

"Why what?"

"Why you are what you are."

"And what am I?" Drew asked with his hands already on the door knob.

"A genius."

-

It was a huge shock when someone noticed Drew Barry's disappearance. It was an even bigger shock when a week later his body was found hidden in an attic, a few blocks away from his apartment.

The police was already on it, but they would never find anything. At least not without her help.