Was it the set of his shoulders, the cut of his hair? Or perhaps his eyes leaped at me in an ancient painful bid for understanding and compassion. No matter. His resemblance to someone I knew a long time ago was a teasing finger tickling at my psyche.
We began with a group movement exercise. Was he awkward and ungraceful? Perhaps. Moreso than the others? Not particularly. Did he feel more acutely self-conscious than the rest? Probably. For when it was his turn to lead, he stopped, paralyzed by indecision, or embarrassment.
"Move, " I nudged. "Just do something."
"I can't think of something. This is my movement."
Ah, a Rebel. Teacher Mode roared in. Remove the disrupter, lest the whole class descend into misrule. I have only half an hour. This must be dealt with quickly.
"Maybe you'd prefer to sit down, then."
"All right." He was so polite.
He sat. The group continued to move, with a new leader.
"You really don't want to participate?"
"No, I'll just watch."
"That doesn't seem fair to the others, do you think?"
"Then I won't watch." And he averted his eyes.
I heard a cracking sound that I believe was my heart. The shard slipped, and I bled inside.
I sat near him- not near enough to imply endorsement of his actions but not so far as to denote distaste or censure. When we'd finished the exercise, I turned to him, met his eyes, sending messages of Safety, and asked, "Are you ready to rejoin the others?"
"I guess."
He was tentative, unabashed, and not the least bit belligerent. I was ashamed of myself for not handling him with more tact and delicacy.
At the end of our time, as the class shuffled off to dance class with J., I bid them each farewell, instructing them to be kind to J., who is a fabulous dancer but an inexperienced teacher.
This boy hung towards the end of the group.
"I'm glad you decided to play," I told him, by way of an apology.
"That first exercise was hard," he said, offering his own apology and justifying his original position at once.
We gather together, all three groups, in the theater to do mini-presentations of our crafts. Matt sits beside an animated girl from a different group. She chats with him, laughs at something he says. His body relaxes, and his face. His contribution to the community drawing and painting project of a series of houses is a set of half-moon shaped windows. "I drew them," he tells J., who correctly identifies the half-moons as his. "She painted them," and he indicates his companion.
He leans forward to tell me, "I liked your class best. I'm sorry I was..." (Oh, gods, don't say 'surly'.) "....shy at first."
What's stuck in my throat? "That's very nice of you to say," I manage. We share a smile that feels somehow familiar, and I hand this boy the pieces of my shattered heart.