I want to feel normal. Whatever that means.
I want to sit in a room and not feel like my skin is paper, like every glance is a flame waiting to burn through me. I want to answer a question in class without my voice cracking from the weight of imagined judgment. I want to walk into the cafeteria and not have my throat close around the idea of being seen.
But today, everything tightens. My chest. My throat. My thoughts.
It starts in history class. Mr. Daniels asks a question about colonial resistance and for once, I know the answer. My hand moves - almost involuntarily - halfway off my desk.
That's when I feel it: the prickle of eyes.
Someone snorts behind me.
"Seriously? Since when does she talk?" a voice mutters.
I retract my hand like it's been slapped. The heat rises from my neck to my scalp. I lower my head, scribble nonsense in my notebook, and pretend I didn't try. That I didn't want to.
After class, I duck into the restroom and lock myself in the last stall. I don't cry. I haven't in a while. Not because I'm strong. Just because it feels like my body has run out of ways to ask for relief.
I pull out my sketchbook and sit cross-legged on the toilet seat like a child hiding from the world. Pencil to paper. Always. It's the only thing that doesn't expect anything from me.
Today's drawing begins with a box. A room. No doors. No windows. Just walls closing in. Inside, I sketch a girl pressed against one wall. Her knees are tucked into her chest. But what stands out is her face - blank. Not sad. Not angry. Just... gone.
The lines blur a little as I shade. My fingers smudge too hard and darken the corners until they feel suffocating.
A bell rings in the distance. I stay in the stall two minutes longer than necessary, just to avoid the surge of people in the hallway. I time my steps. Practice vanishing.
Luca doesn't show up at the stairwell during free period. A small part of me - the irrational, desperate part - hoped he would. That maybe yesterday wasn't a fluke.
But the stairs are empty. And the silence is louder without him.
I draw anyway.
This time, it's a maze. Twisted paths, sharp turns. In the center, I draw a mirror. The reflection shows a girl with wings stitched crookedly onto her shoulders. They're too big. Too heavy. She can't fly, but they weigh her down anyway.
By the time I'm finished, my fingers ache.
The cafeteria is unbearable today. I try to sit at my usual table, but someone else is there - a group of juniors laughing loudly, sprawling their trays across the surface like they own it.
I retreat.
Back to the art room.
It's empty during lunch, except for the ghosts of last period's chaos. Crumpled paper litters the floor. Half-cleaned paint palettes dot the sinks. I don't turn on the lights.
Instead, I sit by the windows and open my sketchbook again. This time, I don't draw immediately. I just hold the pencil.
I think about all the ways I've tried to be invisible. About how invisibility doesn't always protect you - sometimes it just isolates you.
And still, it's safer than being seen wrong.
When the pencil finally moves, I draw something different.
Not wings.
Not boxes.
A mouth.
Closed.
Then, another.
Sewn shut.
The third one is open. From it, instead of words, pour flowers. Soft, heavy blooms - peonies, I think. Or maybe roses. I don't know why. But they feel right.
I label the piece: When I Tried to Speak.
The words I can't say get stuck in drawings. They bloom on pages, not lips. They scream silently through ink. Maybe that's the only way I know how to talk.
By the time the bell rings again, I feel hollow. But there's a strange sort of comfort in the emptiness. It means I've let something out, even if only onto paper.
My sketchbook is my voice.
And today, it said everything I couldn't.