Iris had not meant to keep reading. She noticed the book most when she tried not to think about it, the way scenes surfaced uninvited while she moved through her apartment. By the time she opened the laptop again, the decision had already been made.
Iris closed her notebook with a soft sigh, letting her hands rest in her lap. Even though she had read only a fraction of the book, it felt like she had stepped into someone else's shoes. The extra's struggles were small, almost imperceptible in the grand narrative, but they struck her heart with a surprising force. It was not the grandeur of heroics that drew Iris in, but the raw, quiet reality of existing under constant pressure and neglect.
A knock on the door pulled her from the story. She glanced up, expecting a neighbor or delivery, but the hall was empty. The familiar stillness of her apartment returned, a reminder that her life was isolated in ways she had long grown used to. She turned back to the screen, her fingers brushing over the keys before opening the next chapter.
The extra faced a minor public humiliation a simple accusation that spiraled into gossip. Her cheeks burned with shame as whispers followed her down the hall. No one seemed to notice her efforts to explain herself, and her teachers' glances barely acknowledged the torment. Iris's stomach tightened. She remembered similar moments in her own life, small injustices overlooked by those who should have cared. Her parents' attention had always favored her brother, her classmates' teasing had gone unchecked, and now, reading about the extra, the feeling of invisibility returned with startling clarity.
This time, the empathy came with resistance. Iris leaned back instead of forward, her fingers loosening from the edge of the desk. She did not want to draw lessons from this girl's suffering. Did not want to turn someone else's quiet misery into motivation. The thought made her uncomfortable, almost defensive. This was just a story. Just words on a screen. Whatever it stirred in her chest was coincidence, nothing more. She closed the laptop for a moment, as if distance alone could dull the pull.
This time, Iris felt herself pulling back. The familiarity unsettled her more than the cruelty did. She did not want to claim understanding, did not want to treat recognition as ownership. The story was not hers. She reminded herself of that, firmly, as if repetition could make it true.
Her thoughts wandered to her own apartment: the cluttered counters, the faint smell of yesterday's coffee, the stack of unfinished assignments. She could feel the pull of her own life, the pressures she faced every day, and yet, somehow, reading this world allowed her to step outside herself. She could witness endurance without the exhaustion of living it.
The afternoon light slanted through the blinds, warming her shoulders as she continued reading. The extra's family was briefly mentioned a warm home, a loving sibling but the girl still struggled under the weight of expectations. Iris recognized the echo of her own experience: being overlooked, having to push herself to meet standards no one noticed, carrying burdens quietly because acknowledgment was scarce.
For the first time, Iris allowed herself to imagine what it might feel like to intervene in another life, to shield someone from small cruelties, to quietly offer support where the world had failed them. She felt a strange stirring, a sense of purpose she had not recognized before. Even if this life existed only in the pages of a novel, it offered a blueprint of empathy, a map of understanding resilience against neglect and subtle cruelty.
The clock ticked softly, unnoticed in the cocoon of her room. She leaned back, tracing the rim of her coffee mug with her thumb, letting the quiet tension of the story sink in. She realized that these small, painful moments the flinches, the whispered apologies, the unnoticed victories mattered. They formed the character's backbone, her hidden strength. And Iris, in reading, felt that backbone align with the quiet courage she had fostered in herself.
By the time she set the laptop aside, the room had dimmed to a gentle twilight. She exhaled, feeling both lighter and heavier at once. Lighter, for the recognition of resilience she shared with the extra. Heavier, for the weight of her own unacknowledged struggles. The empathy she felt was no longer abstract; it had become tangible, a quiet determination nestled deep in her chest.
Iris glanced at her reflection in the darkened screen for a moment, letting the cityscape outside blur behind her. The world of the novel had imprinted itself on her consciousness, a mirror that was both comforting and haunting. She knew, deep down, that her life would never quite feel the same again.
And somewhere in that quiet evening, the threads of curiosity, empathy, and anticipation began to weave themselves together, setting the stage for a change that Iris could neither predict nor resist.