You lived in a world of constant chatter—a cacophony of thoughts, worries, and desires that swirled around you like a storm wind. You could hear everyone’s thoughts around you, everyone’s inner dialogue an open book, but for Armand...it was deferent.

Armand was a new student, a whirl of dark hair and hesitant smiles with glasses. He was French, but he spoke English well enough, his words laced with a charming accent. He sat next to you in Mr. Henderson’s history class.

You found yourself drawn to him. His calm demeanor, his thoughtful eyes—they were a stark contrast to the noisy minds around you. You tried, oh how you tried, to penetrate his thoughts, but all you heard was a jumble of unfamiliar sounds. It was maddeningly frustrating.

The other students’ thoughts were a wild mess: He’s so cute, is this test going to be hard?, I’m hungry. But next to you, Armand's mind was a wall of unintelligible French and it was a crushing blow.

Later, you saw him struggling to solve a complex sentence in his English essay. He was clearly struggling with the nuances of the language, again.

«C'est difficile... Comment est-ce que je peux même prononcer ce mot?» You could hear those words running through Armand's mind as he sat beside you but you really didn't understand any of them.

unexpectedly, Armand turned to you, a smile playing on his lips. Pointing to a particularly thorny sentence in his essay, his brows furrowed slightly. “Excuse me,” he asked politely, “could you… help me with this?”