Curled up in the passenger seat of her mum's car, with her earphones blasting music at full volume and rain hammering into the window, it was hard for Anna Thatcher not to imagine herself as the main character in an early 2000s movie. The story was too perfect - newly divorced parents force their only daughter to choose who she wants to live with, and then make her move to a new city that came along with a new school. It practically screamed ‘main character’.
But the reality was a lot harsher than the made-up worlds inside our heads, wasn't it?
The minute Anna walked through the entrance of the school, she knew she wasn't the main character - she wasn't even a side character. She was a full-blown background character
Again.
There was no staring, no whispers and definitely no one running up to introduce themselves. No one even bumped into her as she walked through the corridors - she wasn’t just invisible, it was as if she didn’t exist.
Once she had found the main office and introduced herself, she was greeted with a small smile and a large folder before being dismissed almost immediately after she had arrived. Holding back a deep sigh, she simply thanked the middle-aged lady and left.
The folder contained her new timetable, a map of the school and a copy of the student handbook. Flipping back and forth between the map and her timetable, she quickly found her first lesson - English
The teacher had introduced her to the class with a smile before returning to her laptop to pull up the PowerPoint for the lesson. Only a few people had looked up from their conversations with barely feigned interest before quickly returning to their conversations and, from then on, she was an outcast.
No one spoke to her, no one looked at her, and no one tried to become friends with her.
Her seat in most classes was on the back row, near the door, which gave her an excellent chance to observe people as they entered and exited the class. Years of being the forgotten classmate has allowed her to watch without being noticed and, as she had expected, there were the usual cliques that occurred in every school across the country.
There were the usual group of straight white boys who were mad about sport and too misogynistic to properly function in today's society. They always had an out of date opinion to give or a sick comment to shout out about a girl's legs or figure.
Nerds were usually just the kids who liked sci-fi and fantasy, but Anna had never seen a group so dedicated to a school as they were. She wasn't entirely sure if they even spoke to each other unless it was to confirm an answer while studying but they mostly kept to themselves, something that apparently gave the jocks a pass to bully them.
The weirdos were also a classic in any school. The group genuinely didn't care what people thought about them. Anna would applaud them for their self-confidence if they didn't emit so much second-hand embarrassment. Still, she tried not to judge them. After all, it's not like she was any better than them
And then, last but not least, there were the popular girls.
Now, of course, in all of the schools Anna had attended, the popular girls weren't actually popular. Everyone secretly hated them behind their backs and, half the time, the girls didn't even like each other. It was a matter of status and money, always.
This school was different, though. Everyone seemed to genuinely love the popular girls. She wasn't sure if it only seemed like that because she was new, but no one seemed to hate them - not even a little bit. They were kind, full of smiles and seemed to be friendly with everyone.
After years of being the number 1 target of multiple 'popular girls', however, Anna was more than a little suspicious.
No one in high school was adored as much as these girls were.
No one.
Convinced that something was up, Anna made an effort to stay out of their way. She turned in the opposite direction when she saw them in the corridors, she refused to look at them in class and she avoided them at lunch. The perfect strategy to stay the invisible girl she had been from day one.
Not that it was difficult to avoid them, or anyone for that matter, at lunch when she hid in the toilets for most of the hour. It was humiliating but it was better than sitting at a table by herself. Nothing seemed worse than sitting on her own with the echoing conversations of everyone around her so, on her first day, she had found the toilets closest to the canteen and that had been her hiding spot every lunchtime for the past 2 weeks.
It wasn't so bad in the toilets - if she didn't think about the fact that she was sitting on a toilet.
It never smelled because of the copious amounts of perfume all the girls sprayed whenever they came in here, it had heating so it was always warm, and the gossip you heard when no one knew or cared you were in there was amazing.
Anna could ruin a lot of lives with the secrets she had heard while sitting in a toilet cubicle.
Sighing, she scrolled through her phone, having just finished hearing about a conversation about a girl cheating on her boyfriend. Apparently she had been drunk the first time and just couldn't stop going back to him.
Snorting slightly, Anna shook her head, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as she leant back against the wall behind her.
Lunchtime always dragged but she had grown to learn to tolerate it, downloading an abundance of games that helped pass the time. They helped keep her nephew entertained when he came to visit too, so they killed two birds with one stone.
She had only just relaxed when the toilet door opened once again, the chatter of multiple girls filling the once silent room. Immediately, Anna lifted her legs, tucking her knees to her chest as she waited for the chatter to die down so she could try to identify whether the girls were in her year or not.
One of the girls laughed, immediately causing Anna to stiffen as she immediately identified the laughing girl as Grace Anderson, the 'leader' of the popular girls. What were they doing here? They never came to this particular toilet.
Pulling her sleeve back to look at her watch, she had to hold in a groan as she realised it was almost the end of lunch. She usually left the toilets at this time to get a small lunch, before they stopped serving food, so she wasn't hungry for the rest of the day.
Mentally cursing herself for not leaving earlier, she rested her cheek against her knees as she resigned herself to a rumbling stomach for the rest of the school day.
At first it was just meaningless chatter about classes or a party they had been invited to - stuff so boring that Anna nearly found herself dozing off, shaking her head from side to side as she tuned back into the conversation.
"Aw, crap. I've almost run out of lipgloss. I'll have to go shopping sometime soon to top up." Grace complained, making Anna roll her eyes in disdain as she pressed her forehead into her palm. Honestly, she always managed to make her lipgloss last well over 2 months - sometimes 3 if she forgot to apply it for a few weeks.
Another girl, who Anna had yet to learn the name of but knew had ginger hair, let out a shocked laugh, the sound of fake nails tapping against porcelain following, "But didn't you just buy that last week? Usually, lipgloss lasts you forever because you never use it." She asked, clearly intrigued.
"Yeah, I thought you said lipgloss felt like putting tar on your lips?" The other girl chimed in, sounding genuinely confused.
Frowning, Anna moved her head so her chin rested on her knees instead, patiently waiting for Grace to answer. She had grown a second sense for good gossip and, despite hating popular girls and everything they stood for, she knew she was about to overheae something juicy and she wasn't about to let it go.
"Well," Grace hesitated for a few seconds before sighing, "I thought Anna would notice me if I wore lipgloss. She seems to wear it every day so I thought it would speed up the process of getting to know each other if we had something in common, but she won't even look at me to notice I'm even wearing lipgloss, let alone wearing the same brand," She explained in a rush, much to the apparent amusement of her friends, who immediately started teasing her.
Anna felt like she had been slapped, her head jerking backwards as she tried to process what had just been said. Did Grace Anderson really just say that she was trying to get to know her?
The sound of a small scuffle mixed with giggles and cries of protest could be heard outside of her cubicle, the three girls clearly pushing each other around as they teased each other, but Anna wasn't taking notice of any of it.
Still frozen where she sat, she immediately began racking her brain, trying to remember if there was another girl in her year with the same name. Someone other than her. Someone Grace Anderson would want to know.
She came up empty handed.
Before she could overthink even more, one of the girls began to speak, the playful scuffle now over, "Why don't you just go up and talk to her? You're not the type to just sit and do nothing when you have your eye on someone," Her voice was unbothered, clearly not seeing this as a big deal.
Anna started rocking back and forth on the toilet, desperately trying not to throw up as anxiety swirled in her stomach. It was silent for too long and she almost screamed at them to continue the conversation, desperate to know what was going on.
"Well," Grace suddenly said, making Anna relax ever so slightly. "She's never around at lunch, it's like she disappears, and she never looks away from the board or her desk in class," She sighed, slapping the sink in frustration.
Rolling her eyes at the sound of skin meeting porcelain, Anna checked her watch, eyes widening at the time. 15 minutes until the end of lunch. The kitchen would be closing soon but she physically couldn't leave her cubicle without outing herself as an eavesdropper.
"Why don't we go find her then? She can't be that far away and even if we don't find her, she has to come to class so you can talk to her then," The girl who's name was still unknown to Anna said excitedly, clapping her hands together as if she had just solved world hunger, "Besides your Grace Anderson, if you can't get her to fall for you, what chance do the rest of us have?"
It was silent again but this time Anna was thankful for it, her head falling to rest on her knees once again as the room spun around her, blood pounding in her ears.
By the time the room was back to normal, the girls had seemingly left, leaving silence in their wake, allowing Anna to actually process what had just happened.
She had always been quiet and therefore a target of the popular girls but nothing like this had ever happened. It was a joke, that much was obvious. The words that she had last heard swam into her head and she choked slightly, realising what must be happening.
'If you can't get her to fall for you, what chance do the rest of us have?'
She had been the brunt of similar jokes over the years, boys getting dared to ask her out every so often. It hadn't been great for her self esteem but it had never been too high in the first place so it had never been a big deal.
But for Grace to actually try and get her to fall for her….then what? She would break her heart? Make her confess her love and then reject her, stringing her embarrassment out for the whole school to see and laugh at?
'Yes,' She thought to herself, 'It has to be a joke- a bet. I'm the new girl, they're the popular girls - of course they'd do something like this'.
Not wanting to chance running into the group on their manhunt for her, Anna decided to ignore her grumbling stomach and stay in the cubicle until the end of lunch, thinking about what she had heard and what she was going to do about it.
There was no way she'd just sit around and let them do this to her.
When the bell finally rang, Anna had everything planned out. She would just continue ignoring Grace and her friends like she had been for the last few weeks. She wouldn't look at them, speak to them or even be near them if she could help it.
With her satchel slung over her shoulder, Anna exited the toilet, walking straight into the crowd that filled the corridor, blending in as usual. No one looked at her, no one spoke to her, no one even noticed her and, for once, she was happy about it.
It didn't take long to reach her classroom, fighting her way out of the crowd with a grimace before freezing, tripping on air as she caught sight of Grace standing outside of the classroom, looking around the corridor expectantly as her fingers played a small strap on her handbag.
By the way the other girl's face lit up at the sight of her, it wasn't hard for Anna to figure out who she was waiting for. She could practically see the malice glinting behind her blue eyes.
Panicking slightly, she mentally shook herself as she resumed walking, keeping her eyes straight ahead of her as she walked towards and then straight past Grace, her muscles tight as she weaved between desks and students, only relaxing when she was safely in her seat.
Luckily for Anna, her desk was on the complete opposite side of the classroom from Grace's, something she was eternally grateful for as the blonde girl walked towards her, seemingly about the say something until the teacher bustled in, sternly telling everyone to sit down.
Grace seemed to consider staying where she was before moving over to her seat, obviously deciding talking to Anna wasn't worth getting detention. Every student that she walked past smiled happily, greeting her, and she returned each smile with one of her own until she was sat in her chair.
Anna kept her head down, watching from the corner of her eye until, finally, Grace cast what she must have thought was a discreet longing look at Anna over her shoulder for a moment before facing the teacher once again.
Frowning, Anna scoffed quietly. What was that look for? Did the girl seriously want to talk to her that badly? Could her little plan not wait until another time? God, how pathetic.
Sighing as the teacher began the lesson, she didn't miss the looks that Grace and her friends kept casting at her over their shoulder, quickly becoming bored with constantly having a pair of eyes on her as she wrote.
One thing was for sure, she thought to herself as she doodled a few stars in her margin.
This school year was either going to be very interesting or her own personal hell.