Cwdw

I looked up. No one else seemed to see it. The girl to my left was doodling a maze in the margin. The boy in front was erasing a smudge on his palm. They saw the neat rows of algebra. I saw a crack in the floor of reality.

The Last Question on the Exam

Around me, two hundred students obeyed. The scrape of graphite ceased. The shuffle of blue books became a graveyard whisper. I looked up

“Time is up,” the proctor said.

I wrote one word: “Everything.”

But I couldn’t move.

I still don’t know what grade I got. But I know I passed something that mattered. I looked up