By the time I slipped into my seat at the back of Mr. Davison’s room, the world felt blurry. Everything was too bright. Too quiet and too loud at the same time. My heart hadn’t slowed since gym class. I opened my notebook, though I knew I wouldn’t write anything. The numbers on the board already didn’t make sense.

  I sat with my sleeves pulled over my palms and tried to steady my breath.

  Just one class closer to the end.

  Mr. Davison stood at the front of the class like a warning. Tall in that stretched-out, brittle way like someone forgot to fill him in all the way. His khakis were always a little too short, revealing pale ankles and socks with faded patterns that might’ve been dinosaurs or tiny calculators. His shirts clung awkwardly to his frame, and his thin neck craned when he turned like it hurt to move.

  He had this voice that was always either too flat or too sharp: no in-between. And he never looked anyone in the eyes for too long, except when it made your skin crawl. His gaze had this habit of sticking to girls a beat too long, especially when he thought no one noticed. But we all noticed. We just didn’t talk about it. Not out loud. The only thing louder than the squeak of his dry-erase markers was the tension in the room when he walked by.

  The classroom buzzed with a quiet hum. The flicker of fluorescent lights overhead, the scrape of a pencil against paper, the subtle coughs and sighs of people trying to pass the time. My math worksheet curled at the edges like it didn’t want to be here either, its smudged numbers were a blur of half-effort and confusion. Everything smelled faintly of dry-erase markers and stale coffee. Mr. Davison’s third cup, judging by the jitter in his voice and the ring of stains around his travel mug.

  I hunched low, hood half-off, trying to make myself small. Invisible. The numbers on my worksheet refused to make sense. They wobbled on the page, rearranging themselves the second I blinked. I could practically feel the clock ticking behind me, each second sharp as a pin, pressing down.

  “Chloe,” Mr. Davison said, not looking up from his desk. “Whiteboard. Now.”

  My heart flipped. No warning. No escape. Just the sound of thirty heads shifting toward me as I slowly stood, legs leaden. I walked to the front of the class like it was the gallows. My palms were already damp, sleeves tugged down past my wrists even though the room was warm.

  There was a dry marker on the ledge. Blue. Uncapped. I picked it up and turned to the problem scrawled across the whiteboard.

  (3x - 2)(y - 2) + 5 = 14

  Simple, probably. For someone whose brain wasn’t made of static and smoke.

  I stared at it. Tried to breathe. The numbers floated. Rearranged again. I could hear them behind me. The whispers, the shuffling, the barely-muted laughter like a wave about to crest.

  “She probably thinks pi is a dessert,” someone murmured.

  Laughter. Not loud, but not quiet either. The blue marker felt slick and useless in my hand. I wrote something down. A guess. Wrong. I could feel it before Mr. Davison even spoke.

  He sighed, loud and tired. “Next time, try to actually study, Chloe.”

  A burn crawled up my neck, settling behind my eyes. But I blinked fast. I wouldn’t cry. Not here.

  Behind me, Kiley added, under her breath but just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Try doing your homework and not just stuffing your face.”

  More laughter. Someone sucked their teeth. I didn’t turn around. I stared at the math I’d just butchered, a broken little equation that felt like it meant more than it should. It wasn’t about algebra. It never was.

  It was the way they all looked at me. I felt like I was barely a person. Like I was the wrong kind of girl with the wrong kind of clothes and the wrong kind of past. I felt seen but not in the way anyone ever wanted to be. Noticed like a stain on the carpet no one wanted to clean up. For a moment my mind drifted like it always did when things got loud and sharp. I thought of him. The man with my blood but no heart. My bio-dad.

  I was five when he tried to kill me. I don’t remember the swing of the bottle, but I remember the fear. The way my mom screamed. The way I hid under the kitchen table, knees tucked to my chest, shaking so hard I thought I might break apart. I remember thinking: This is what it’s like to disappear.

  Sometimes, I wonder if I ever came back from that.

  Sometimes, I think I’m still under that table.

  Mr. Davison waved a hand. “Sit down, Chloe.”

  I didn’t look at anyone as I walked back to my desk. I didn’t want to see the smirks, the looks passed like notes between the popular girls, the triumphant gleam in Kiley’s eyes. I just sank back into my seat and tried to disappear again.

  The clock ticked, steady and merciless.

  Twenty-seven more minutes of math.

  Thirty more days of this hell.

  And then… maybe then… I’d finally get out.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Or maybe I'd just learn to fake the math of being okay better, now.

  The bell jolts me like a slap. I shove my worksheet into my binder. I barely finished, not that it matters and slip out of the room before Mr. Davison could call me back. Or Kiley can make another comment. The hallway is a blur of noise and bodies, but I keep my head down, moving fast, hugging my books to my chest. I can already feel the tight knot in my stomach getting worse. History class is next. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Another hour of pretending I don't exist, pretending I'm fine. I tighten my grip and walk faster.

  I slip into my seat before the late bell rings. History class always felt like walking into a time capsule no one cared to update. The textbooks were thick and crusted with years of use. Pages yellowed, corners folded like dog ears, some with swear words from kids who’d long since graduated. I crack open the battered textbook we’re supposed to use and there it is. Doodles. Everywhere. Dumb jokes in the margins. Sharpie mustaches on old presidents. And of course, right across the map of Europe, a couple of badly drawn penises, proud and crooked like some kind of middle school monument. I stare at them for a second, then flip the page without a word. Figures. Even the books are laughing at me.

  The digital projector buzzed overhead, casting a dull light that flickered whenever someone walked too close to the cord. It always smelled faintly of dry paper and stale air, like the room had been sealed off for a decade and only reopened for lectures about wars no one remembered.

  Posters clung to the walls, curling at the edges; sepia-toned portraits of revolutions, maps that still had countries labelled with names that didn’t exist anymore. A crooked British flag hung at the front, half-faded from sunlight. There was a fan in the corner that never worked, and someone had drawn a mustache on Abraham Lincoln’s face near the back bulletin board. No one had cleaned it. Maybe no one cared.

  The room felt like a sigh. A place you went to disappear into the noise of old stories while pretending your own wasn’t unfolding just outside the door.

  The chairs scraped back all at once like a hundred tiny alarms. I blinked, pulled from the blur of the slideshow just as Mr. Ryker clapped his hands and said with fake cheer, “Alright, class… Time for group work! Pairs for this one. You’ll be researching a revolution of your choice. My favourite is the Industrial Revolution. Does anyone know the start of the Industrial Revolution?”

  The class was silent. I knew. It was in Great Britain, where I was from, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

  “Anyways, a revolution of your choice. I want two two-page, presentations next week. Go on. Pair up!”

  Those two words always sank like stones in my stomach: pair up.

  Around me, the room exploded into motion. Chairs swivelling, voices rising, backpacks unzipping. Everyone moved instinctively, like magnets snapping together. Friends turned in their seats, eyebrows lifted, nods exchanged. Desks scooted into place like it had all been decided long before the words left his mouth.

  I didn’t move. My hands were tucked under my thighs to keep them from shaking.

  My eyes scanned the room, hoping, but not expecting. But hoping, someone might look my way. Someone might wave me over, or just tilt their head with a small smile like, Hey, I don’t mind. But the ones who made eye contact quickly looked away, like I was a punishment they didn’t want to risk being assigned.

  The clock ticked louder than the buzzing projector.

  Seconds passed. Then minutes.

  Mr. Ryker looked up from his computer, annoyed. “Anyone not have a partner?”

  I raised my hand, small, half-hearted. A few snickers rippled in the back corner of the room.

  “Alright, Chloe. You can work with… Tyler,” he said, pointing toward a boy with floppy hair and a hoodie two sizes too big. Tyler groaned audibly and didn’t even try to hide it.

  “Just don’t mess it up,” he said, dropping into the seat beside mine as it pained him to be there. He didn’t look at me. I didn’t reply. My face burned. I kept my eyes on my notebook and tried to breathe slowly, carefully like it would stop the heaviness in my ribs.

  Two seats in front of me, Brooklyn was already laughing, tossing her hair over her shoulder in the way she did when she wanted attention. Her top was basically a band of fabric, stretched tight over her chest, the straps of her hot pink bra deliberately showing. When she leaned forward, her belly button ring glinted in the projector light like it was winking at me. Or mocking me.

  “Ugh, seriously, how is this even school-appropriate?” Tyler muttered, watching her flirt with the two soccer guys behind her. They were both leaning in, grinning.

  Brooklyn twirled her pen between her fingers and said just loud enough, “Hey, Chloe, didn’t you used to have a boyfriend? What happened? He finally realized you don’t know what to do with one?”

  Laughter.

  Even the boys chuckled, not really cruel, just entertained. Like she was a show. Like I was part of it, too—whether I wanted to be or not.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Not a word. Not even a breath.

  My voice stuck somewhere between my throat and my stomach. My palms were damp. The room felt colder than before like someone had opened a window. As if the air had shifted just enough to make my skin feel wrong.

  Brooklyn leaned over her desk and whispered to the guys behind her, her tongue half-out like she was biting back something deliciously mean. One of them high-fived her.

  Tyler leaned back in his chair, kicking one foot up on the desk next to him. He glanced over at me like he could feel the way I was curling in on myself. "Hey," he said, voice low so the others couldn’t hear. "Don’t listen to those idiots."

  I blinked, not sure if he was actually talking to me.

  "They don’t know shit about the real world," he went on, picking at a thread on his sleeve. "Never had to work for a damn thing in their life. Mommy and Daddy just hand 'em everything." He shook his head, snorting. "They wouldn’t last five minutes outside this little bubble."

  He glanced at me again, this time with something that almost looked like... Not pity. Something sharper. "You’re tougher than all of 'em put together. Don’t forget that."

  Tyler slid his worksheet toward me. “I’ll do the research if you type it up. Cool?” His voice was clipped, transactional. Like we were coworkers who hated the same office.

  “Yeah, cool.” I nodded. My chest felt hollow, like a glass bottle someone had drained and left behind. The project was about revolutions, but all I could think about was how still I’d become. How the room moved around me like I didn’t belong in it. Like I was something forgotten, something that took up space but served no purpose.

  “Savage,” he said.

  As Tyler shifted in his seat, I caught sight of a sticker peeling at the corner of his binder. It was a black crow, wings spread wide. It made me think of that one movie from the ‘90s... The Raven? No that wasn’t right. Maybe, A Crow, I was pretty sure. They just did a remake, didn’t they? I stared at it a little too long, wondering what it must feel like to be loved so much that even death couldn’t break it. Meanwhile, all I ever wanted was to get free, to disappear and never look back.

  Then I paused. I wondered if anyone else heard my heartbeat. If anyone else felt how loud it was to be this alone. At least Tyler was being nice to me. We got to work. It was actually nice. I almost felt human. We worked for the rest of the period before the bell went for lunch.