By Friday, Sophie had already memorized the patterns of the school's cruelty. The boys weren't creative—they didn't need to be. The cafeteria, the hallways, the lockers, the whispers. It was enough. Their power didn't lie in what they did but in how relentless they were.
When she opened her locker that morning, a slip of folded paper fell to the floor. Sophie froze before picking it up. Her heart already knew what it would say.
The word was written in jagged black letters across the page: Nobody.
She unfolded another, then another. The locker was stuffed with them—pages ripped from notebooks, covered in the same word. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Each one written like a curse.
Her hands trembled as she shoved the papers into her backpack. The hallway bustled around her, other students laughing, shoving books into lockers, calling across the noise. Nobody saw her face. Nobody cared.
The irony twisted cruelly. They called her Nobody because they knew it would cut. And it did.
Second-period literature was supposed to be her safe class. She liked books, liked the way words could build worlds stronger than her own. But that day, she couldn't focus on the teacher's lecture about Shakespeare's tragedies.
She sat at the back, as always, head bent over her notebook, though she wasn't writing. She just doodled shapes in the margins, small spirals that grew darker the harder she pressed the pen.
Her eyes betrayed her. They drifted, as they had every day since she arrived, to the boys at the center of the room.
Marcus was there. He always was.
He lounged in his chair, arm draped across the back like a king surveying his court. His uniform jacket was undone, his tie loose, hair falling carelessly into his eyes. He looked bored, half-lidded gaze fixed on nothing. His friends whispered and snickered beside him, tearing scraps of paper to toss when the teacher's back was turned.
And then—Marcus glanced at her.
Sophie's pen stilled. Her breath snagged. His eyes locked on hers for a single heartbeat, steady, searching.
It wasn't cruelty. Not like the others. But it wasn't kindness either. His stare was something else, something unreadable. It unsettled her more than any insult could.
She dropped her gaze instantly, her cheeks burning. When she dared to glance back, he was leaning toward his friends again, whispering something that made them laugh.
The sound cut deep.
At lunch, Sophie sat outside, away from the chaos of the cafeteria. The sky was gray, clouds heavy with the promise of rain. She ate a piece of bread from home, her stomach twisting too much to want more.
She told herself she was fine. That being alone was better. That she didn't care.
But her hand slipped into her backpack, brushing against the crumpled papers hidden there. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.
The word echoed in her head like a drumbeat.
After school, Sophie took the long way home, following the cracked sidewalk past the football field. She preferred the quiet. The houses nearby stood like strangers—neat lawns, drawn curtains, everything too perfect to feel real.
Her mind replayed the day, over and over. The notes, the stares, Marcus's eyes.
She hated that last part most of all.
Because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget the flicker she thought she'd seen in him. That moment in the cafeteria when he hadn't laughed right away. The hesitation in his gaze.
It was nothing. She knew that. He'd laughed in the end, hadn't he? He'd let his friends humiliate her, hadn't he?
And yet—she wondered.
What if there was something beneath the mask? Something that wasn't cruelty?
The thought was dangerous. She knew better. She'd seen enough already to understand what Marcus Hale was. He was the center of it all. The worst of them.
But the human mind is a traitor. It clings to the smallest signs of hope, even when they are poison.
By the time Sophie reached her house, the sky had broken. Rain fell in thin sheets, soaking her hair and clothes. She didn't run. She let it cover her, as if the storm could wash away the word still carved into her thoughts.
Nobody.
That night, Sophie sat at her desk, a small lamp casting pale light across her textbooks. Homework lay open, but the words blurred on the page. She pressed her palm against her cheek, feeling the heat of exhaustion and humiliation.
The cut on her hand from the cafeteria accident had scabbed over. She stared at it, tracing the line with her fingertip. A mark. A wound she could point to. Proof.
But the worst wounds weren't on her skin.
They were inside, bruises no one could see.
She pulled out one of the notes, smoothed it flat on her desk. Nobody. The letters bled slightly where the ink had pressed too hard into the paper. She wondered whose handwriting it was. She wondered if Marcus had written one.
Her chest ached.
She whispered into the silence of her room, a promise spoken only for herself:
"You will not break. You will not give them that."
But her reflection in the window didn't look convinced.
And deep inside, Sophie knew the truth. She was already breaking.
And the one person she hated most—Marcus Hale—was the only one who seemed to notice.