“I like the heat.”

“Do you?” Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she backed up, walking away.

I smiled. Yeah, I guess it was weird. At first I thought that living in Phoenix got me used to the high temperatures, but Shelburne Falls was a different kind of heat. The thickness of the air saturated everything with moisture. It was wet, and it made every pore on my skin sensitive and aware. I was constantly conscious of the way the hem of my coral-colored skirt brushed across my thighs and the heat pouring off my chest made my shirt stick to my skin. The back of my neck was already damp, and although I was glad that I wore a light white sleeveless blouse, I wished I had pulled my hair up instead of leaving it down. Brushing it over one shoulder to lie on my chest, I turned the knob and walked into the classroom.

The smell hit me right away, causing me to stop. I hadn’t been in a classroom in this school in two years, and that smell took me back to bittersweet memories. The whole school smelled the same. Like basketballs and construction paper. I inhaled, suddenly feeling alone but at home. I had nothing I had the last time I was here. No boyfriend. No best friend. But it was here that I was last happy.

“Hi, Ms. Penley,” I said right away, trying to appear less nervous than I was.

“K.C.!” She smiled one of those smiles where you can see both rows of teeth. “It made my summer when I heard you’d be helping me out.”

I nodded, looking around the nearly empty lab. A few other students—or possibly tutors, judging from the fact that they had files like mine—sat at tables around the room.

It was weird to see Ms. Penley in here, since her literature and writing classes were always in a standard classroom. This room made my legs stiffen with fear, whereas Ms. Penley’s usual classroom made my toes curl with comfort. Chem lab was my least favorite place, because I hated science. Luckily I’d had Tate to get me through those classes.

“Well.” I shrugged. “I just hope I can be of help.”

She waved me off. “It’ll be fine,” she assured me. “I’ll be in the room, and there are three other tutors here as well. That’s why we’re in the lab. Lots of room.”

I nodded, it finally making sense.

She continued talking as she organized files on her desk. “You’ll be sitting at a table with four students. We’re going to spend the first half hour or so reviewing the basics: gathering and organizing their ideas, main idea and supporting details, and the revision process. Most of these students still need a lot of practice on forming a thesis statement. You already have their diagnostic assessments.” She stopped to look at me. “So when we break into groups, I want them to each share a sample paragraph and discuss how it could be made better. I simply want them to analyze their work today, and I want them to see how their work compares to others’.”

That sounded easy enough. “Got it.”

Scanning the room again, I noticed all the other tutors seated on their own, so I headed for an empty table and unloaded my bag. I glanced up at the clock next to the door and counted down three hours and fifty minutes until I could leave. I’d have two sessions, each lasting an hour and forty-five minutes with four students in each session. Some kids were here for more than just writing, so they’d rotate to physics, English, or whatever math class they needed. And as icing on the cake, we’d all get our fifteen-minute snack or Facebook break.

One of the tutors—I think his name was Simon if I remembered him correctly from when we were in school together—smiled at me, and I nodded a greeting back.

Students trailed in, most of them later than the eight fifteen start time, and I let my eyes wander as some took their seats. I recognized a few kids, but I didn’t know any of them. They had just been finishing their freshman year when I’d graduated.

Did I look that young only two years ago? Did I wear that much makeup?

As Ms. Penley began her lecture, showing examples over the classroom projector of what excellent papers looked like, I noticed that barely any of the kids paid attention.

This must be hard for her. Some of the kids clearly just didn’t care. They covertly played on their phones under the table. They whispered to one another, ignoring Penley. They doodled in their notebooks.

And I remembered that that was what I did in my science classes in high school. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I’d just gotten tired of struggling.

So I stopped trying. I did enough but no more.

Now I wished I tried more and wasn’t so afraid to put myself out there. Maybe if I had reached out for new experiences, I’d know what I wanted to do with my life. Now my options felt limited, because I’d held myself back in high school, and I was two years into college political science classes that I couldn’t just throw away.

I wanted these students to know that their education gave them choices. It was a valuable time.

Penley wrapped up her lesson and then directed the students to their tutors. I stayed where I was, leaning my elbows on the table and forcing a relaxed smile as one boy and three girls came to sit down.

“Hi, I’m K.C.,” I greeted.

The guy held up his pointer finger but didn’t make eye contact. “Jake.” And then he buried his face in his hands and let out a loud yawn.

Jake might be on drugs.

I looked across the table to the three girls. I knew one of them. The younger sister of a somewhat friend from high school whom I no longer kept in touch with. The other two were strangers, but all three of them looked at me as if I were the hair in their soup.

That was one thing that didn’t make me nervous. I had no trouble standing up to women in my own generation.

I kept staring at them, eyebrows raised in expectation.

The dark-haired girl finally spoke up. “I’m Ana. This is Christa and Sydney.”

Sydney I knew. Her sister was sweet. She looked like a little shit, though.

She had long auburn hair, parted on the side and hanging in big, voluminous curls down her back and over her chest. Her stunning brown eyes brought out the red tint in her hair, and her makeup and nails were perfect.

Ana’s beautiful Asian complexion glowed alabaster and her long, shiny black hair and dark eyes were flawless.

Christa had short blond hair cut in a bob with a severe angle. Although the wallflower out of the group, I knew from knowing Tate that those were usually the ones to show their awesomeness later.

All of the girls were dressed the same. Shorts and tank tops.

I smiled calmly. “Nice to meet all of you.” I took out their diagnostic assessments—compositions they wrote at the end of the school year, including their outlines and rough drafts—and handed them their own papers. “So we’re supposed to each share a sample paragraph and discuss what improvements we could make. Who would like to go first?”

No one budged. Jake sat next to me, looking as though he was ready to fall asleep. Ana looked away while Christa and Sydney smirked, challenging me.

“Anyone?” I asked, a grin tickling my face. I remembered my classes when no one would volunteer. Now I knew what being a teacher felt like.

I held up my hands. “I’ll read it if someone wants to give me their paper. This time.”

Jake shoved his paper in my face, still not making eye contact.

“Thank you, Jake.” Relief flooded me.

I cleared my throat, reading out loud. “What do you do when you’re hungry? You might go through a drive-through or hit the store. For eight hundred and forty-two million people in the world, they can’t get food that easy.”

I cleared my throat again, hearing the girls across from me snicker.

“That was a good opening paragraph.” I nodded, keeping my voice light and looking at Jake even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Asking a question right off the bat is a solid way to grab the reader. And I like your voice.”

“He’s barely talked since we sat down,” Sydney joked. “How can you like his voice?”

“I meant the tone that comes through in his writing,” I explained as if she didn’t already know. “Expressions like ‘hit the store’ when most people would say ‘go to the store’ or ‘drive to the store.’ That’s his personal voice. It makes the writing sound natural.”

I caught Jake out of the corner of my eye, looking at me. I turned to him, wanting to be as kind as possible. The truth was, he needed a lot of work. His word choice was boring, he used adjectives when he should’ve used adverbs, and the sentences flowed like mud.

But I wasn’t going to lay all that on him today.

“Two suggestions, though: The statistic you wrote wasn’t cited. Readers won’t know where you got that information and they won’t trust it if you don’t tell them the Web site, article, or text to which you’re referring.”

“ ‘To which you’re referring,’ ” Sydney mimicked, and the paper crinkled in my hand.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, calling her out.

She rolled her eyes and whispered something to Christa.

“Another thing,” I continued, trying to ignore her, “is that there is some passive language h-here,” I stuttered, noticing Christa laughing into her hand and Sydney stealing glances at me. “You might want to spice it up,” I tried to continue to Jake, “by saying—” And when all three of the girls laughed together, I stopped.