If Aunt Ruth's house taught Mara how to survive silence, school taught her how dangerous visibility could be.
Ridgeway Secondary School buzzed with energy every morning,shouting students, teachers calling out warnings, laughter echoing through corridors.
To most people, it felt alive. To Mara, it felt exposed. There was nowhere to hide in crowds like these.
She walked through the gates each day with her shoulders slightly hunched, eyes fixed ahead.
She didn't look for friends. She didn't look for enemies either.
She simply moved, hoping the day would pass without incident.
It rarely did.
At first, the bullying was subtle.
A giggle when she raised her hand. A whisper when she walked past.
Someone "accidentally" bumps into her hard enough to make her stumble. They tested her the way predators test boundaries,watching to see if she would react.
Mara never did.
She cleaned dirt off her skirt without complaint. She picked up fallen books quietly. She pretended not to hear when they laughed at the way she spoke carefully, precisely, as though words were something fragile.
Her silence only encouraged them.
During English class, the teacher asked a question about the assigned novel. Mara knew the answer immediately.
She hesitated, then raised her hand.
"Yes, Mara?" the teacher said.
She answered calmly, clearly.
The room fell silent for a brief moment,then laughter rippled across the class.
"Of course she knows," someone muttered. "Always showing off."
Mara stared at her desk, her cheeks burning.
At break time, she sat alone beneath the staircase, the place where the noise dulled enough to be bearable.
She took out her lunch,two slices of bread with nothing between them,and ate slowly.
A group of girls passed by.
"Why does she eat like that?" "Probably can't afford real food." "She thinks she's better than everyone."
Mara folded the wrapper carefully and slipped it into her bag.
Later that day, in the science lab, a boy kicked the back of her chair repeatedly while she tried to write. Each kick jolted her forward.
"Stop," she said quietly, not turning around.
He laughed and kicked harder.
The teacher didn't notice.
By the end of the day, her head ached from holding everything in.
When she returned home, Aunt Ruth noticed immediately.
"You're dragging your feet," she said. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Mara replied.
Aunt Ruth scoffed. "You look weak."
She handed Mara a bucket and cleaning cloth. "The bathroom. Now."
As Mara scrubbed tiles already spotless, tears blurred her vision,but she blinked them away. Crying would only make things worse.
That night, as she lay awake, Mara realized something painful and important.
There was no safe place.
Home hurt her. School humiliated her. Silence protected her but also trapped her.
And yet, the next morning, she got up anyway.
The bullying worsened as weeks passed.
One afternoon, someone hid her bag before the final bell. She searched frantically while laughter followed her down the hallway.
By the time she found it, her notebooks were bent and torn.
"Why don't you fight back?" a girl sneered. "Or are you too scared?"
Mara said nothing.
Another day, she found cruel words scratched into her desk:
WEIRD. POOR. NOBODY.
She stared at them for a long time, then covered them with her exercise book.
What hurt most wasn't the words,it was the way no one stopped it.
Teachers saw her grades and assumed she was fine. Students saw her silence and assumed she was weak.
Only one person noticed the difference between quiet and broken.
It happened on a Wednesday.
Mara was sitting alone during lunch again, pretending to read while her stomach twisted with hunger. A shadow fell across the page.
"Is this seat taken?"
Mara looked up.
The girl standing there had bright eyes and an open smile.
She carried two lunch boxes, one balanced awkwardly on top of the other.
"I'm Lina," the girl said. "And you look like someone who could use company."
Mara hesitated. Her instinct was to say no.
To protect herself.
But something about Lina's voice,warm, unafraid,made her nod.
They ate in silence at first.
Then Lina spoke.
"You're really smart, you know."
Mara froze. "I don't talk much."
"You don't have to," Lina replied easily.
"I see the test scores."
Mara didn't know what to say to that.
Lina grinned. "You can sit with me anytime."
When the bell rang, Lina stood and waved. "See you in class."
Mara watched her walk away, a strange feeling stirring in her chest.
It wasn't happiness,not yet.
It was a possibility.
That night, as Mara lay on her mattress in the dark, she thought about Lina's smile.
About the way she hadn't looked at her with pity or cruelty.
For the first time since arriving at Aunt Ruth's house, Mara allowed herself a dangerous thought:
Maybe I don't have to face everything alone