Make Me Pass

6

The project is a study on mycelium networks—the “wood wide web.” How fungi communicate underground, sending signals, sharing nutrients. A silent, invisible support system.

The irony is a physical ache.

We’re supposed to build a visual representation. A diorama of a forest floor, with wires and LEDs to show the hidden connections.

Eli emails me the research packet. It’s meticulously organized, color-coded, and five pages longer than the requirement. His message is three lines long.

Blake,

Attached is the preliminary research. I’ve outlined the sections requiring written analysis. I will handle the physical construction. You can draft the introduction and background.

-Eli

It’s polite. Professional. And so cold it makes my teeth hurt.

I spend Tuesday night trying to write the introduction. The words won’t come. All I can see is his face at the party, the blankness in his eyes that was worse than any anger.

He’s a geek. He spends lunch alone.

I was so desperate to seem cool, to fit in with Jordyn and Skye’s razor-edged approval, that I sharpened my words into weapons and aimed them at the gentlest person in the room.

On Wednesday, he’s in the library again. He has a cardboard box filled with supplies: soil, moss, twigs, a tangle of copper wire and tiny lights.

“I brought the materials,” he says, not looking up as I approach. “You can review the draft of your sections when you’re done.”

He’s already sculpting the base, his fingers careful and precise as he presses dark soil into a shallow wooden tray. He works with a quiet focus that feels like a fortress. I am on the outside.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

His hands still for a fraction of a second. That’s all. Then he continues, layering moss over the soil.

“You’ve said that.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.” He finally looks at me, and his gaze is weary. “That’s the problem. You’re sorry for the consequence. For feeling bad. But you meant the words when you said them. You thought them. That’s what you really think of me.”

I have no defense. Because he’s right.

He turns back to the diorama, picking up a spool of thin copper wire. “The introduction isn’t done. Please focus on the work.”

I open my laptop, the blank document glaring back at me. I type one sentence.

Communication is the foundation of any network, seen or unseen.

I delete it.

It feels like a lie. I’ve never known how to communicate anything real. I just know how to perform.

On Thursday, Jordyn corners me at my locker. The hallways are a cacophony of slamming metal and shouting, a stark contrast to the tomb-like silence of the library.

“So? How’s the world’s most awkward partnership?” she asks, leaning against the locker next to mine.

“Fine.”

“He still not talking to you?”

“We’re talking about the project.”

“So, no.” She pops her gum. “Look, B, it was a shitty thing to say, but he needs to get over it. It’s not like you keyed his car.”

“It’s worse,” I say, slamming my locker shut. “And you were the one pushing me to admit I liked him. You set this whole thing up.”

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t put this on me. I didn’t tell you to go full mean girl. That was all you.”

She walks away, and I’m left with the sour taste of another truth. I chose this. Every sharp, stupid word.

When I get to the library, Eli isn’t at our usual table. A flicker of panic sparks in my chest. Did he just… quit?

Then I see him, in the far corner by the biology section. He’s talking to Ms. Kay, pointing to something in a large book. She nods, smiling, and pats him on the shoulder.

He doesn’t look like an outcast when he talks to her. He looks engaged. Intelligent. He looks like someone.

He comes back to the table, the large book about fungal biology tucked under his arm.

“Ms. Kay had the reference text I needed,” he says, answering a question I didn’t ask. He sits and opens the book, his silence once again a solid, impenetrable wall.

I watch his hands as he sorts through the tiny LED lights. They are capable hands. The same hands that lent me a pencil in calculus when mine had broken, without me even having to ask. He’d just slid it onto my desk and looked back at the board.

“You lent me a pencil,” I say, the words soft, unbidden.

He freezes.

“In Mr. Henry’s class. You just… gave it to me. You didn’t make a thing of it. You just did it.”

He doesn’t look up. “It was a pencil.”

“It was kind.”

For a long moment, the only sound is the hum of the library’s HVAC system. He slowly places an LED on the table.

“People who are kind,” he says, his voice so low I have to lean in to hear it, “usually don’t have to try very hard to be.”

The statement hangs in the air between us, simple and devastating.

He stands, gathering his backpack. “I have to go. The draft is in our shared drive. Please add your sections by Sunday night so I can integrate them.”

He walks away, leaving me alone with the half-built forest, a tangle of unconnected wires, and the crushing understanding of what I’ve lost.

I don’t go home. I sit there until the librarian announces closing time, staring at the diorama. He’s built a small, beautiful landscape. It’s detailed and thoughtful. He’s created a whole world in a wooden tray.

And I haven’t done a thing to help it grow.