When he sincerely tried to pay attention to what they were saying, they accused him of staring and being creepy. When he carefully looked away, they complained that he was rude and ignoring them. He tried a system of looking at them and looking away in equal amounts, and they said he seemed shifty and nervous. He settled into a study cubicle at the back of the library where his presence surely couldn’t bother anyone, but the librarian sent him to the counselor’s office to talk about why he was self-isolating. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he said.
Noah Landers attends California State University, Long Beach