Some people say childhood is the happiest time of your life.
Andrea Paisley never believed that.
For her, childhood felt more like a long hallway she had to walk through every single day, knowing someone would push her, laugh at her, or whisper something cruel behind her back.
It started when she was six years old.
Elementary school.
A place that was supposed to be safe.
Instead, it became the place where Andrea first learned how ugly words could be.
"Monkey."
"Ugly."
"Why is she even here?"
The insults followed her like shadows. At first she didn't understand them. She would go home confused, asking herself what she did wrong. Why people looked at her differently. Why they laughed.
But children grow up fast when they're forced to.
By the time Andrea was eight, she understood exactly what they meant.
And by the time she was ten, she stopped crying in front of people.
Crying only made them laugh harder.
But the classmates weren't the only problem.
There was also the teacher.
Strict. Cold. Always watching Andrea like she was waiting for her to make a mistake.
No one knew why the teacher disliked her so much. But Andrea felt it every day. Every wrong answer, every small mistake, every moment when she spoke too loudly or defended herself—it was always her fault.
Always Andrea.
From age six to fifteen, school felt like a place where she had to survive.
Not live.
Survive.
But there was one person who made those years even more confusing.
Matthew Neyman.
Andrea didn't know what Matthew was to her.
Enemy.
Annoyance.
First crush.
Maybe all of them at the same time.
They fought constantly. Sometimes over stupid things, sometimes over nothing at all. Rumors spread between them, arguments exploded in the middle of class, and most people believed they hated each other.
Maybe they did.
But sometimes…
Something strange happened.
There were rare moments when Matthew helped her.
Once he told someone to stop bothering her.
Another time he helped her pick up books someone knocked out of her hands.
Those moments were small, almost invisible.
But to Andrea, they felt huge.
Because when you spend years feeling like the entire world is against you, even the smallest kindness can feel like a miracle.
That was probably when it happened.
When she started liking him.
She never told anyone, of course.
That would have been humiliating.
Especially because Matthew had a girlfriend now.
Vanessa Příhodová.
Beautiful. Confident. Everything Andrea believed she wasn't.
So Andrea did what she always did when something hurt too much.
She buried it.
And now high school was starting.
A new building.
New classrooms.
New people.
A new chance to pretend none of it ever happened.
Andrea Paisley stood outside the school gates, staring at the entrance like it was the door to a completely different life.
She told herself one simple thing.
Forget everything.
Forget Matthew.
Forget elementary school.
Forget the bullying.
Forget the girl who spent years feeling like she didn't belong anywhere.
High school would be different.
It had to be.
But Andrea didn't know yet that some scars don't disappear just because you change schools.
And sometimes the people you try the hardest to forget…
Are the ones waiting for you on the other side of the door.