The scribbles in my workbook are not notes or equations, but whimsical, disproportionate doodles and implausible stories with happy endings I tell myself to keep entertained. One such idea now pops into my head, and I hurriedly jot it down in an undecipherable scrawl. When I am satisfied with the result, I deftly twirl my pencil around practiced fingers and fix my eyes on the clock.

It is 12:45 in the afternoon, and sixth period has begun.

It is a combination of the post-lunch contented drowsiness, the soporific lectures, and the gentle afternoon heat that makes physics the sleepiest hour of the day. We are like a class of lemmings as one by one, we give ourselves to the unpadded but inviting pillows of our thin black desks while the drone of Ms. Dorrance’s voice lulls us to blissful daydreams.

Most days, I am part of that weak-willed group. Today, however, I resist those urges. Today, I am an observer of numerous pairs of drooping lids and resiliently bobbing heads. But my favored subject for examination is, as always, Alan Simons.

He’s chosen to wear a button-up plaid shirt with washed-out colors. A staple of his closet, dress-shirts are his preferred style of clothing, and he puts one on almost every single morning. He thinks they make him look sharp—“business casual,” he calls it—though others label him a prep and try-hard.

His natural hair color is a ferocious shade of red, but he dyed it crow black one un-extraordinary, rainy Seattle day. I often wonder whether he did it on a dare, or as a symbol of individuality, or possibly to rebel against his too-stern parents. I like the last explanation the best, because it seems to bring him a little closer to me. In my mind, I make a promise to myself to ask him after class, when he will be alone and refreshed from his well-deserved nap.

But instead, I let out an imperceptible sigh and resign myself to ignorance, because I’ll probably never pluck up the courage to talk to him, and he’d never seek me out himself. He keeps to his circle of friends, and doesn’t have the time for a fanciful girl like me.

In all honesty, I am afraid to approach him, to intrude into the cool nimbus of apathy that surrounds him even when he is only one of a crowd. For Alan Simons stands under an umbrella of distant calm, a shield from the common rainwater troubles of less self-assured people. It would take a violent gust, not a gentle zephyr, to unsettle that quietly indomitable boy sitting across from me, during the sleepiest hour of the day.

I scribble away his story, and mine, and tuck it away in the secret recesses of my heart.