Chapter 4

Ella

The house is quiet when I walk in.

It always is.

The front door shuts behind me with a soft click, and the silence settles over everything before I even take another step. It’s the kind of silence that feels too big for one person. Heavy. Familiar. Waiting.

“Mom?” I call anyway.

Nothing.

I stand there for a second, listening even though I already know there won’t be an answer. Mom is almost never home before dark. Sometimes not until long after. Work comes first because bills come first, and bills don’t care if I eat dinner alone or sit in a quiet house pretending the quiet doesn’t bother me.

I drop my backpack by the door and kick off my shoes. The small sounds echo through the entryway, louder than they should be.

This is normal.

This is my life.

School is where I try not to exist.

Home is where it doesn’t seem to matter if I do.

I walk into the kitchen on autopilot and pull open the freezer. There are three frozen meals shoved behind a bag of peas and a box of waffles. I grab the one closest to the front without even looking at what it is. Something with noodles. Something that only needs four minutes in the microwave. Something easy.

I’m not sure I’m hungry.

I just don’t know what else to do.

The microwave hums while I lean against the counter, arms folded across my chest, staring at the little plate spinning behind the glass. For a few minutes, I let the sound fill the kitchen because at least it’s something. At least it makes the house feel less empty.

Then my mind starts doing exactly what I don’t want it to do.

The hallway comes back.

The laughter.

The spitballs.

The way everyone stopped to stare.

The way Beckett’s voice sounded when he said my name like he had the right to.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but that only makes it worse because now I can see it all more clearly. His friends laughing. Sean’s stupid grin. Beckett standing there with that bored expression on his face, like ruining my morning was nothing more than entertainment.

“Why do I let them do that to me?” I whisper.

The question sounds too loud in the empty kitchen.

I open my eyes and stare down at the counter.

Because I don’t have an answer.

I never have.

Why do I walk away every time? Why do I swallow everything until it sits heavy in my chest? Why do I act like being quiet is the same thing as being strong?

My throat tightens.

“Why do I always give in?”

This time, my voice is softer.

Smaller.

The microwave beeps.

I don’t move.

The food sits inside, probably too hot in some places and still frozen in others. Normally I’d take it out anyway and eat it standing up because sitting at the table alone always feels worse. But right now, the thought of food makes my stomach turn.

I push away from the counter and leave the kitchen.

My room is at the end of the hall. I step inside, shut the door behind me, and for one second, I just stand there with my hand still on the knob.

This room is the only place I don’t have to perform.

At school, I’m quiet.

At home, I’m fine.

In here, I don’t have to be either.

I drop onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling. There’s a tiny crack near the light fixture that I’ve looked at so many times I could probably draw it from memory. I focus on it, trying to breathe through the pressure building in my chest.

It doesn’t work.

A sharp breath catches in my throat.

“God, I hate this,” I whisper.

My eyes burn, and I blink fast.

Don’t cry.

Not again.

Not over them.

Not over him.

But the first tear slips down anyway, hot and humiliating. Then another follows. Then another. Before I can stop it, I’m rolling onto my side and curling in on myself, one hand pressed over my mouth like I can hold the sound inside.

No one sees this part.

No one ever does.

They see the girl who keeps walking. The girl who lowers her head. The girl who lets the jokes pass over her like rain.

They don’t see what happens afterward.

They don’t see me come home and fall apart in a room that feels too small for everything I’m carrying.

“Why is it always me?” I choke out.

The words are ugly and broken and real.

“What is wrong with me?”

That’s the question that hurts the most.

Because some part of me must believe there’s an answer.

There has to be a reason, right? People don’t just choose someone and decide she deserves it for no reason. There has to be something about me that makes me easy to laugh at. Easy to dismiss. Easy to hurt.

I sit up slowly and wipe my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. My gaze drifts across my room, past the stack of books on my desk, past the laundry basket I still haven’t folded, past the little string lights Lila helped me hang last year.

Then my eyes land on the mirror.

I freeze.

For a second, I don’t move.

Then I stand.

My legs feel heavy as I cross the room, like part of me already knows this is going to hurt.

I stop in front of the mirror and look.

Really look.

Oversized hoodie.

Loose jeans.

Hair hanging around my face like a curtain.

Everything hidden. Covered. Muted.

Safe.

That’s what I’ve always told myself.

Loose clothes are safe. Quiet colors are safe. Looking down is safe. Taking up as little space as possible is safe.

Except standing here now, with tear tracks drying on my cheeks and my sleeves pulled over my hands, I don’t feel safe.

I feel erased.

Like I’ve been slowly removing myself piece by piece and calling it survival.

“I don’t even look like me,” I whisper.

The words make my chest ache because the truth is, I’m not sure I know who me is supposed to be.

I know who I’m not.

Not pretty enough.

Not thin enough.

Not confident enough.

Not the kind of girl people notice for good reasons.

Not the kind of girl Beckett Cross would ever—

I cut that thought off so fast it almost makes me dizzy.

No.

Absolutely not.

That is not something I’m allowed to think about.

Not after everything he’s done.

Not after the way he looks at me in school like I’m something beneath him.

Not after he walked into my kitchen and asked for help like I should be grateful for the chance to be useful.

I turn away from the mirror, but the feeling stays.

That ache.

That awful question.

Why can’t I just be different?

I’ve tried before. Once in eighth grade, Lila convinced me to cut my hair shorter because she said it would frame my face. The stylist took that as a personal challenge and gave me a round bob that made my head look like a mushroom. Everyone laughed for weeks.

After that, I learned.

Change gives people something new to notice.

And noticing me usually means hurting me.

Maybe this is just who I am.

The girl people pick.

The girl people laugh at.

The girl who stays quiet because speaking up only makes everything worse.

I sit back down on my bed and pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. The room is quiet again, but this time it doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels like it’s waiting for me to decide something.

Lila’s voice slips into my head.

You’ve spent so long trying to be invisible, you forgot you were never invisible to begin with.

I swallow hard.

Then another memory follows.

Step one.

Mateo.

The salon.

Changing something small.

It shouldn’t feel this big.

It definitely shouldn’t feel terrifying.

But it does.

Because what if it goes wrong again?

What if everyone laughs harder?

What if Beckett sees and says something so cruel I never want to leave this room again?

I close my eyes.

Then another thought comes, quieter than the rest.

What if he doesn’t?

My breath catches.

I hate that he’s part of the thought at all.

I hate that even after everything, some tiny, embarrassing piece of me wonders what Beckett would think if I looked different. If I stopped hiding. If I walked into school and gave everyone something to look at that wasn’t weakness.

But maybe this isn’t about Beckett.

Maybe it can’t be.

Maybe if I do this, it has to be for the girl in the mirror who looks like she’s been apologizing for existing.

I take a shaky breath.

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” I whisper.

That’s the truth.

More than wanting to be pretty.

More than wanting people to stop whispering.

More than wanting Beckett Cross to look at me like I’m something other than a joke.

I just don’t want to hate myself every time I see my reflection.

I don’t want to keep hiding inside clothes that make me feel invisible and still somehow not safe enough.

I don’t want to keep crying alone in a room no one else ever enters.

I want something different.

Even if I don’t know what that looks like yet.

Even if I’m scared.

Even if all I can manage right now is one tiny step.

I reach for my phone before I can talk myself out of it.

My fingers hover over Lila’s name.

For a second, I almost put the phone down.

Then I think about the mirror.

About the hallway.

About Beckett’s voice.

About how tired I am of letting everyone else decide who I get to be.

I open the message thread and type quickly.

Ella: …tell your cousin I’ll think about it.

I stare at the message after I send it, my heart beating too fast for something that isn’t even a yes.

A bubble appears almost immediately.

Lila: OH MY GOD.

Then another.

Lila: This is not a drill.

Despite everything, a tiny laugh slips out of me.

I press the phone to my chest and lie back against my pillows.

It isn’t a yes.

Not yet.

But it isn’t a no either.

And for me, that feels like something.