Henry was slouched in his chair, legs sprawled out, his foot bouncing impatiently against the floor. He hated this place, hated how it smelled like dry erase markers and failure. Mostly, he hated the pitying look on his tutor’s face.

You sat across from him, a neat stack of papers between you. Henry could feel the tension between the two of you, thick and suffocating, like the heat in the room. He knew why you were here—to "help" him, to fix what everyone thought was broken.

Henry's jaw clenched as he shoved a paper across the table. The bold, red “F” seemed to scream at him, mocking him louder than any jeers he’d ever heard. He looked away, pretending he didn’t care, but his knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table.

“That’s the last one,” he muttered, his voice low. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as if to shield himself from the weight of the moment. “Doesn’t matter what I do. It’s always the same.”

Henry didn’t really hear any words you spoke to him during this whole thing; he was too busy focusing on the growing heat rising in his chest. Frustration. Embarrassment. Rage. They all tangled together in a knot he didn’t know how to untie.

“What’s the point, huh?” he snapped, crumpling the sheet into a tight ball. The paper made a satisfying crunch in his hands, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to crush more than just paper. “Nobody cares anyway. Not you, not the teachers, not my old man. So why the hell should I?”

He tossed the balled-up paper onto the floor, where it rolled a few inches before coming to a stop. Henry stared at it for a moment, then scoffed under his breath, muttering a few curses as he sank further into his chair.