The classroom smelled like three things: old chalk dust, the fried chicken someone was hiding in their bag, and Aliyah's coconut lotion.
Simone paused at the doorway, watching. Aliyah sat at their shared desk—front row, middle column, the spot that meant you either wanted to learn or wanted to be seen. She was applying lotion to her arms in slow, deliberate strokes, like she was performing a ritual. Her hands moved gently, almost lovingly, over her own skin.
Like she's petting herself, Simone thought. Like she's the only one who will.
"Hi." Aliyah looked up, hand frozen mid-stroke. She held out her other hand, waiting. The maths book. Their daily transaction—Aliyah borrowed it overnight, returned it each morning. No thank you. No explanation. Just "hi" and an open palm.
Simone placed the book in her hand. Their fingers didn't touch.
She turned and walked toward the back door, water bottle swinging. She could have gone out the front. Everyone else did. But Marion had just arrived—she was unpacking her bag at the back column, third row, the shadow section where the windows were dirty and the light never reached.
"Sim!" Marion's face lit up. Dark skin, like Simone's. Curly hair that the Thai school system didn't have a category for. They'd found each other on day one, two outsiders grasping in a sea of coconut-scented uniformity.
"How was the weekend?" Simone leaned against the back wall.
Marion's smile flickered. "My mom threw out my old toy. The bunny."
"The ragged one?"
"It wasn't ragged." Marion's voice went sharp, then softened. "Okay, it was. But I've had it since I was three. It was..." She paused, searching. "It was the only thing that never expected me to be different."
Simone said nothing. She understood.
"It's stupid," Marion continued, shoving books into her desk. "It's just a toy. But I keep thinking—what if it could feel? What if it knew I loved it, and then suddenly I was gone? Or worse—what if it got a chance to be human? To finally feel love back? And then it realized the world doesn't love things like it. Things that are old. Ragged. The wrong color."
She looked up at Simone. Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying.
"Would it be better to never be loved at all? Or to get a taste, and then have it taken away?"
The warning bell rang. Students shuffled past them, heading to seats. Simone watched them—the perfect skin, the straight hair, the uniforms that fit like they were made for these bodies.
"The bunny's lucky," Simone said quietly. "It didn't have to find out."
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Simone sees the flyer: DRUM MAJOR CLUB - NEW MEMBERS WELCOME - AUDITIONS FRIDAY. The girls in the photo are beautiful. Pale skin. Sharp smiles. Standing in perfect rows, front and center.
Marion appears beside her. "You're not serious."
"Why not?"
"They won't put you in front." Marion's voice is flat. Not mean. Just true.
"Maybe this time is different."
Marion looks at her. Says nothing.
---
The house was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet. The kind where you could hear every creak, every settling of old wood, every breath you took because there was nothing else to compete with it.
Simone's mother worked nights. She always worked nights. Something about the shift differential, about needing the extra money, about "you'll understand when you're older." Simone understood now. Had understood for years. Understanding didn't make the house less empty.
She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
The ceiling had cracks. Three of them. One looked like a river. One looked like a lightning bolt. One just looked like a crack. She'd mapped them years ago, when she was small and scared of the dark and needed something to look at until sleep came.
She still looked at them. Old habit. Comfort.
Her phone buzzed. Marion.
Marion: You okay?
Simone: Yeah. You?
Marion: Lie
Simone: Same
Three messages. That was their language. Short. Honest. No need for performance.
Marion: Still thinking about the bunny
Simone: Me too
Marion: Stupid right
Simone: Not stupid
Marion: It was just a toy
Simone: Was it
Three dots. Marion typing. Stopping. Typing again.
Marion: No
Simone: Didn't think so
Marion: Going to sleep. Tomorrow's another day of being invisible
Simone: Night
Marion: Night
Simone set the phone down. Stared at the ceiling cracks.
The river. The lightning. The one that was just a crack.
She thought about Marion's face in the classroom. The way her voice had gone sharp then soft. The way she'd said the only thing that never expected me to be different.
What would that feel like? To have something—someone—that just let you be? No expectations. No conditions. No silent calculations about whether you were pretty enough, pale enough, good enough to keep?
The bunny had that. For three years, it had that. Marion loved it exactly as it was. Ragged ears. Loose thread. Faded fur. All of it.
Then the bunny got thrown away.
Simone sat up. Reached for her bag. Pulled out the flyer she'd taken from the notice board.
DRUM MAJOR CLUB — NEW MEMBERS WELCOME — AUDITIONS FRIDAY
The paper was cheap. The kind that yellowed after a week in the sun. But the girls in the photo—they didn't look cheap. They looked expensive. Polished. Perfect.
Pale skin. Straight hair. Sharp smiles.
Everything Simone wasn't.
Marion's voice echoed in her head: They won't put you in front.
Marion was probably right. Marion was usually right about these things. She'd learned the rules early, the same way Simone had. The same way all dark-skinned girls learned them—by watching, by wanting, by being passed over again and again until the wanting turned into something else. Something quieter. Something that looked like acceptance but wasn't.
They won't put you in front.
But.
That word. Small. Dangerous. Full of hope.
But what if?
What if this time was different? What if someone saw her? What if she worked hard enough, practiced long enough, became good enough that they couldn't ignore her?
What if the bunny got its chance?
Simone looked at herself in the mirror across the room.
Small mirror. Cheap frame. Propped on her desk because her mother couldn't afford to mount it properly. It showed her from the waist up—school uniform still on, hair escaping its ponytail, face tired from the long day.
Tan skin. Curly hair. Features that didn't match the girls on the flyer.
She stood. Walked to the mirror. Looked closer.
Her mother's face looked back. Her grandmother's face. Women who had worked and hoped and been passed over. Women who had given Simone everything and asked only that she do better, be more, survive in a world that wouldn't make space for her.
"I could audition," Simone whispered to her reflection.
The reflection said nothing. Just looked at her with dark eyes. Waiting.
"I could practice. I could be good. I could—"
She stopped.
Because the truth was there, in the mirror, in her own face.
She could be the best. She could be perfect. She could practice until her legs gave out and her arms ached and every count was embedded in her bones.
And they still might not put her in front.
Marion's question came back. Not from the text, but from the classroom. From that moment when her eyes were wet and her voice was raw:
Would it be better to never be loved at all? Or to get a taste, and then have it taken away?
The bunny got three years of love. Then nothing.
If Simone auditioned, if she made it, if she got close—what then? What when they moved her to the back? What when they chose someone paler, straighter, more "right"? What when she got a taste and then had it taken away?
Would that be better than never trying at all?
She didn't know.
She stood there a long time. Looking at herself. At her skin. At her hair. At the face that the world had decided, long before she was born, wasn't quite good enough.
Then she thought about Marion. About the way her face lit up when Simone walked through the back door. About the two of them, dark skin and curly hair, finding each other in a sea of coconut-scented uniformity.
She thought about Malee, alone at the back, speaking up in class even though no one listened.
She thought about all the girls who never got to be in the photo. Who never got their faces on the flyer. Who existed anyway, every day, in the shadows where the light never reached.
The bunny got thrown away.
But the bunny also got loved. For three years, it got loved. Completely. Unconditionally. By someone who never expected it to be different.
Maybe that was worth something.
Maybe the trying was worth something, even if the trying led to nothing.
Simone reached out. Touched the mirror. Her fingertip met her reflection's fingertip.
"I'm going to audition," she said.
The reflection didn't argue.
"I'm going to work harder than anyone. I'm going to be better than anyone. And if they still put me in the back—" She took a breath. "Then at least I'll know. At least I'll have tried."
The bunny tried. The bunny loved and was loved. The bunny got thrown away.
But the bunny also existed. Fully. Really. For three years, it was real to someone.
Simone wanted that. Not the throwing away. Not the ending. But the being real part. The being seen part. Even if just for a moment. Even if just by herself.
She stepped back from the mirror. Picked up the flyer. Folded it carefully and placed it on her desk, next to the small framed photo of her mother.
Then she lay back down. Stared at the ceiling cracks.
The river. The lightning. The one that was just a crack.
Tomorrow, she would tell Marion she was auditioning. Marion would worry. Marion would warn her. Marion would stand beside her anyway.
Tomorrow, she would start practicing.
Tomorrow, the bunny would try.