"Don't forget, you've got your art class tonight at six!" Mom called after me as I stepped out of the car.
"I'll remember!" I promised, hefting my overstuffed backpack out of the passenger seat and slinging it across my shoulders.
"'Bye, Stella!" my little sister, Maria said, waving.
"Bye," I said.
I turned towards the school in front of me and began the long walk to the math wing of the school, where my first period was.
"Welcome to South River High," the sign to the right of me proclaimed. "Home of the eagles!"
I had passed it so many times that it faded into the background, barely even worth a glance.
What time is it? I wondered. I need to get to my locker before the bell rings.
I glanced at my watch. It read: 7:45 a.m. Great. I only had five minutes to make it to my locker before first period, Geometry Honors. I began to walk faster, determined to make it to the building in time. If I was late to class one more time this semester, I'd get after school detention.
Simply thinking about that was enough to make me walk faster. Too fast. I nearly tripped over my untied shoelace. That would have been disastrous. I didn't want-or need-to fall down in front of the fifty-odd high schoolers that were gathered around the school building.
So I bent down, with some difficulty due to the many textbooks crammed into my bag, and quickly double-knotted my shoelace. Then I stood up, brushed aside the few strands of long, dark hair that had fallen in my face, and joined the throng of high schoolers making their way into the school building. Just another face in the crowd, returning for yet another school day.
As the minutes ticked by, I went over the list of things I needed to get out of my locker.
Spanish notebook, History textbook, and...oh, yeah, my English binder, too.
I pushed my way through the crowd of students loitering around the hallway before class, focusing on my purple sneakers and not the claustrophobia that always accompanied me when I was inside. Now I was mostly able to ignore it, thankfully. When I was younger it used to be a lot harder. I used to not even be able to sit in a classroom without having a panic attack.
For the most part I had learned to control my fear. Now of course, it hardly mattered. A new, greater, fear had grown in its place.
No, don't think about that, I told myself. Think about how little time you have left to get to your locker.
Right. My locker. 3015, located on the history hallway, two lockers away from the bathrooms. Ten lockers away from the water fountains. A bottom locker, yellow, same as all the others in the school, with a peeling, mostly faded sticker of a cartoon character that someone had likely slapped on years ago. Locker combination: 21/4/8.
The locker that was now only a few feet away.
Make that right in front of me, I thought as I shrugged my backpack off and unzipped it.
Two turns to the right, one turn to the left, I thought, spinning the dial.
I opened the door, wincing slightly as I heard the hinges creak, and placed the books I no longer needed to carry around in my locker. The books I did need, I shoved into my backpack. Then, finished at my locker, I shut the door and hurried down the hallway, trying to get to my class before the bell rang.
There we go, I thought. Room 318, Mrs. Ramirez's class. Geometry Honors.
I walked through the door and took a seat in my usual seat at the back of the room right as the bell rang.
"Get out your homework from the weekend and pass it to the front," Mrs. Ramirez instructed, shutting the door behind her.
I did as she asked, as did the rest of the class.
I estimate that in about thirty seconds, she will start doing checking attendance, I thought.
Mrs. Ramirez sat down in her desk, collected the homework papers, and clicked something on her computer. She went through the list of names, calling mine last as usual, thanks to my last name, Williams, being towards the end of the alphabet.
"Stella?" she asked.
"Here," I said.
A PowerPoint presentation appeared on the smartboard.
"Today's lesson: Trigonometric functions," the title read.
I did my best to work through the problems, raised my hand when I knew the answer, which, admittedly, wasn't very often, never once talking out of turn or else doing anything to suggest I was anything other than a hardworking, dedicated student.
We finished the day's work with two minutes to spare before the bell, to my great relief, as I was quite ready to be finished with math. While most of my classmates used this unexpected free time to talk, though, I doodled on a scrap piece of paper, and listened to many conversations that took place around me.
Listening wasn't the same as actually being a part of a conversation, by any means, but it was something. Still, the number of conversations that circled around video games and YouTube binge-watching sessions was disappointing.
Then there were those who didn't even bother interacting with their fellow students and stared down at their phones obsessively. Mrs. Ramirez had said at the beginning of the year that it was all right to have your phone out if it was the very, very end of class, but still. I couldn't understand why it was widely accepted as the norm to stare at a phone screen every second one was given free time.
Okay, sure, there were some very helpful things you could do with technology, but how, exactly, was making a collection of memes going to help you later in life? Oh, wait. It wasn't going to. So why even spend your time doing something like that, something that wasn't worthwhile?
Fleeting pleasure, I thought. It's fun in the moment, and when you can't visualize where you want to be in the future, you don't see why you shouldn't be spending your time doing anything else. Besides, if everyone's doing it, apparently it's fine.
I was startled out of my thoughts by the second period bell ringing. I pushed my chair in, grabbed my backpack, and glanced once at the piece of paper I held. I had sketched a random spiral.
An accurate statement of my life right now, I thought, Spiraling out of my control.
I crumpled up the paper and threw it towards the trash can a few feet away. To my surprise, the paper actually landed inside the trash.
Good, I thought.
I didn't feel like summoning the energy to bend over, pick it up off the floor, where I had expected it to land, and place it in the trash. That, and I didn't trust myself not to fall over in the process.
That reminds me, Gym's next period, I thought. And today we're supposed to be doing the mile run. It'll be even worse than usual!
But, I reminded myself, it was nearing winter. Maybe the gym teacher, Coach Sterling, would reschedule it due to the cold?
Yeah, and maybe I'll start reading romance novels instead of fantasy novels, I thought. Let's face it, neither of those things will ever happen.
"Go change quickly, girls! Today we're doing the mile run!" Coach Sterling barked as I entered the gym with several other of my classmates.
I headed straight for the girl's locker room.
Please don't let there be a lot of people in there already, I prayed. Please...
Having to change in front of about thirty other girls was bad enough already. Having to do it while trying not to let my claustrophobia suffocate me was even worse. The very thought of walking into a small room made me shudder.
C'mon, Stella. This class is an easy 100 to boost that GPA, I told myself. And whatever grade you get on the mile run is 20% of your semester grade. Remember, under twelve minutes to get an A. Easy. You just have to change into your gym clothes first.
I forced myself to open the door to the girls' locker room. A couple of giggling, selfie-taking girls-my classmates-followed me. Their names came to me immediately.
Emma and Sofia, I thought. They're in my fifth period, too.
I doubted either of them knew my name. Or cared to know.
Oh, boy, I thought as I entered the room, wrinkling my nose as I walked past the bathrooms.
At least three-quarters of the class was already in the locker room.
It could be worse, I thought. The whole class could already be in here. But don't think. About. That.
I focused only on walking over to an unoccupied corner of the room, and carefully pulling my gym clothes out of my bag. I did not want them to touch the filthy floor. But I didn't want to be in this room a second longer than I had to. It felt like the walls were closing in on me.
I changed into my gym clothes as quickly as I could, unceremoniously stuffing my other clothes into my gym bag and putting my tennis shoes back on without bothering to untie the laces. Then I practically ran out of the room, into the gym that was, thankfully, a great deal larger than the locker room.
As usual, the red digits on the scoreboard that served as a timer informed me that I had over two minutes left before I even had to be out of the locker room and back in the gym. I used up both of those minutes pulling my air back into what I hoped was a messy ponytail and not just a mess.
"Let's go, girls!" Coach Sterling called when all three numbers on the scoreboard were zeroes.
Once the whole class was gathered in the gym, the Coach Sterling waved his clipboard for us to follow him outside to the track. As I walked outside with the rest of the class, relieved to have finally left the claustrophobic locker room and gym, but none too excited about running, I noticed that it had warmed up considerably already. There never was a chance of me getting out of this, then, I thought glumly.
The only good thing about today's gym class was that it was over much quicker than usual. All I had to do was run four laps. So much easier said than done, however. By the time I was finished, I nearly collapsed into the bleachers. According to the teacher's stopwatch, ten minutes and thirty seconds had elapsed when I finished my last lap.
That meant everyone still running had less than two minutes to finish the mile.
Not everyone's a perfectionist like you. They might not be aiming for an A, I thought.
Technically they could get by with a passing grade so long as they finished in under fifteen minutes, but come on! You could walk a mile in under fifteen minutes.
At least most of them are trying, I thought, glancing back at the track. It'll probably be only a few more minutes until we can go inside.
My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that all I'd had to eat for breakfast was a granola bar. And, in two hours, you can eat lunch.
Hurry up! I begged the few girls left running.
I wanted to change out of my sweaty gym clothes. Really, I just wanted to do something else, anything else, that would keep me occupied.
Distracted, whispered a voice in mind.
That, too. Every second I sat here on the hard bleachers was another second for my mind to wander into places I worked hard to keep it from.
No, don't even go there. Think about something else.
But what? I was literally just sitting here, with no more laps to run, no schoolwork in front of me to fill out, no classes to hurry to, no problems to solve or any vocabulary words to memorize, no drawings to create, no books to dive into, no one to talk to, nothing to distract me from myself.
Think about those Spanish verb conjugations you're supposed to be memorizing, I thought. Or think of a line from a book! Anything!
But try as I might, I could not recall any of my Spanish notes, though I was certain I had looked over them last night. And I couldn't recall anything from the last book I'd read.
I focused my gaze back on the girls running around the track, trying to watch their progress and do nothing else. It wasn't enough.
I could hear my classmates, each in their long-ago established, tightly knit friend circles, talking and laughing and trading the latest gossip with each other, around me, and thought, bMaybe if I had someone to talk to...
I didn't, though. I hadn't had anyone to talk to at school since ninth grade began. By now you'd think I'd have gotten used to it, but...it was still painful to think about. Feeling as though I was alone, that was what broke through my defenses, through my attempts at keeping the memory of my nightmares at bay. The details I wished I could forget came crashing back down on me.
I was lying down in bed. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, hurting my eyes, so I sat up. My little sister, Maria, came through the bedroom door and smiled. But instead of having teeth, she had fangs, like a vampire, or, like an animal. A wolf, maybe. So it was less like a smile and more like she was baring her teeth in a snarl.
That wasn't the only difference, either. Her eyes, which were usually chocolate brown, like Dad's, were completely black. I couldn't tell where the irises ended and the pupils began.
"It's time to get up, big sister," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice.
Her fingers elongated into claws she used to drag me from my bed. Somehow all my strength was gone and I was powerless to fight her.
She dragged me to the bathroom. "Why didn't you tell us what you were, Stella?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Don't play that game," Maria said. "You know exactly what I mean. Look in the mirror. The evidence is right there."
She shoved me in front of the mirror, and the silver, star-shaped marking I always kept hidden underneath my bangs was visible, gleaming in the strange darkness that had settled over the whole house. I could feel its power spreading throughout me. I looked down at my hands. Below them, I could see energy glowing, and begging me to call upon it.
Someone grabbed me from behind and I instinctively lashed out, letting the power that flowed through me control me for once instead of the other way around.
"Why, Stella?" my father came into view, holding my mother's bleeding body.
I looked down at my hands in fear. Had I done that?
But they were no longer hands. They were claws, just like the ones Maria had used to drag me out of bed. I cried out in fear, an inhuman sound that reverberated throughout the room. Maria, now in her normal form, clutched my father's arm in fear.
"Daddy, I'm scared!" she cried. "Don't let that monster hurt us!"
My father looked at me, and there was pure hatred in his brown eyes. "You were never my daughter. Look what you've done to this family. You've torn it apart."
I opened my mouth to protest, but then I was falling, down, down, surrounded by darkness on all sides. I heard whispers around me.
"Help me. Someone. Anyone. Please," the same voice, always, the same voice, whispered, in a voice that was almost unintelligible. "Please..."
The whispers were cut off abruptly, and I was no longer falling, but sitting inside of a metal cage. I ran to the bars and pressed my face against the cold metal.
"Let me out!" I cried.
There was a man standing a few feet in front of me with his back to me.
"No," he said quietly. "I'm afraid your own actions have brought this upon you."
He walked away.
"NO!" I screamed. "You can't leave me here!"
But he was gone, and the bars began to slowly but surely creep towards me, keeping me trapped in my metal prison. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw another cage just like mine, but far away and barely visible. Could I, perhaps, not be alone after all?
Before I could be sure of what I saw, though, the other cage disappeared and the bars of my cage pressed against me, making it difficult to breathe. My vision began to grow dark, and I knew the end was approaching.
And that's when I woke up.
"Girls!" my gym teacher called. "Head back to the gym!"
I shook off the memory of the dream, but I still couldn't shake the feeling of being alone. It didn't help that the rest of my classmates all walked to the gym in packs, chatting and checking their phones. (Seriously? They couldn't even run laps around the track without bringing their mobile devices?) I trailed behind, as usual, at the very back of the group.
And, as usual, no one had even looked at me when they were all getting up, or sitting and waiting. I felt completely invisible. No, I felt as though I didn't even exist. Or, wait, that wasn't quite right, either. I definitely existed, I just felt as though my existence wasn't even enough to be noticed by my peers, or anyone.
But I continued walking. As I entered the gym, I felt the familiar humming underneath my skin that occupied every waking second increase in volume. Instinctively I looked around, wondering if the sound was loud enough for any of my classmates to hear. I had forgotten that none of them ever would be able to hear it, not even if it became so loud my own eardrums would surely burst from the sound.
I had never once met someone who could hear the sound of my power flowing through my body, and never expected to. So it was me, and me alone who would have to find a way to keep my power contained while there were other people around. I had found that strong emotions triggered the power deep inside me, made the urge to use it stronger, and almost impossible to resist.
Remembering my nightmare had aroused a feeling of fear that I was doing my best to shake while still being trapped in the four walls of the gym. I didn't particularly like any of my classmates, but I didn't want them to get hurt, either. Especially not because of me.
So I had to control my fear, and control my power, before it controlled me. That had never happened before, and I hoped it never did. But on the rare occasions I did use my power, summoning just a miniscule amount, I could feel the rest practically begging to be let out.
Now inside of the girls' locker room, I felt an overwhelming urge to call upon some of it. I had been wanting to test this theory of mine out for a while, and now I didn't really have any choice but to. The feeling of being alone, combined with my claustrophobia, exhaustion, and stress was now weighing heavily on me. If I did nothing, I knew that my power would activate in full, and I doubted I'd be able to control it.
I summoned a tiny portion of my power and willed myself to take on the appearance of everything around me, like a human chameleon. A warm, pleasant feeling spread throughout my body, and when I looked down at my feet, I saw instead the dirty locker room floor. To the eyes of anyone who may have glanced my way, I wasn't there at all. Literally invisible.
Shapeshifting, or changing my appearance, was the only thing I knew I could call upon the power within me to do. I was sure that if I tried, I'd find other abilities that I could use, but I was too afraid to. Not just because I was afraid I'd lose control of the energy inside of me if my emotions were incredibly stong, though that was a big part of it.
In my nightmares, I frequently was trapped inside of a cage, alone. This could be my mind dwelling on the feelings of being inside most of the day, and therefore, feeling claustrophobic, or trapped. It could even be the thoughts I often had, of feeling as if I were stuck inside this life manifesting themselves in a different form. But what I thought was even more likely to be true was the fear I had of someone eventually discovering the power I was hiding and would believe me to be, not just different from the rest, and freakishly so, but dangerous.
Okay, I was a fourteen-year-old girl. I wasn't dangerous, by any stretch of the imagination. But the power I felt deep inside of me, that was a very different story. If I was provoked, maybe, I-maybe it could hurt someone. Even kill them. I couldn't let that happen. No, it was better for me to continue living as though this power didn't exist at all.
I waited for my classmates to clear out of the locker room before I made myself visible once more. From what I could tell, however, all of them had been too busy talking and checking their phones and fixing their hair to even notice I had apparently disappeared. I shouldered my backpack and trudged towards my next class.
Now, like always, I was always pretending to be something I wasn't. To be, if not normal, than at least unnoticeable in a crowd. A ghost, overlooked by everyone and always, always invisible. I was used to living this way, but that didn't mean I was happy with it. I was tired of being unable to fit in with my peers, to be accepted for who they thought I was. So maybe living like this wasn't the best plan, even if it did keep my secret safe.
What, though, I wondered as I pushed open the door to the history wing, was I supposed to do to change things?
I wanted to be accepted for who I was. That much I knew for certain. I just wished I knew how to make that dream a reality. I wanted to believe it would happen even as part of me doubted it ever would.