Chapter 2: Like a Ghost

Elowen navigated it all like a windowpane breath—here, but not at all. Her movement upset nothing. Her sneakers, frayed at the edges, glided across the floor in quiet, tentative rubs that seemed almost to apologize for being there. Canvas grew thin at the toes, dirt hardened like obstinate shadows in the fabric. Her hoodie, oversized, sun-faded from secondhand machines, enveloped her frame. The sleeves fell over her hands, protecting her from touch.

Shoulders hunched in a permanent stoop, she walked with her head down, eyes just slipping enough to avoid meeting anyone else's. Lockers slammed around her like pistol shots—quick, hard. Laughter trailed behind, no softer, no nicer.

It ricocheted down the hall like shrapnel, slicing through the silence she wore like armor. She didn’t flinch. She’d learned long ago how to let it all pass through her. Invisibility wasn’t a blessing—it was a survival skill, shaped by years of pretending not to exist. A ghost cloaked in cotton and denim, haunting corridors where no one truly saw her—only passed by.

And ahead, as ever, Reina walked as though the corridor was her own. Every step danced—self-assured, fluid, a small bounce in her hips, a practiced stance designed to draw glances. And it succeeded. She didn't want attention; she didn't even need to demand it. It circled around her like planets to gravity. Her laugh, sharp and easy, cut through the din like a knife swathed in silk.

Even her silence spoke. It hung in the air like scent after she was gone. Reina didn't merely inhabit here—she claimed it. Claimed the glances, the whispers, the room itself, as if it had been shaped with her in mind. Elowen followed behind like a shadow of Reina's floodlight.

"Wait up," Elowen whispered, voice hardly louder than a breath—delicate, nearly overwhelmed by the clang and chatter surrounding them.

Reina paused outside her locker, slowly moving, fluidly, the type that assumed the world would hold up. She didn't spin around right away. Rather, she tossed her honey-blonde locks over one shoulder in a slow curve, catching the light like an eye-magnet. It wasn't reflex—it was show, expertly done. When she finally looked back, her smile was photo-perfect—curved lips slicked just so, eyes gentle with practiced charm—but it didn't register in her eyes. It seldom did. There was something empty there, a look of a mask too long and too well worn.

"You move like a ghost," Reina said, her voice laced with a honeyed sweetness that camouflaged the jab. Every syllable was soft, loving even, but cut sharp enough to sting.". "Seriously? If I didn't periodically check, I'd think you floated into a vent or something. Poof." She waved her fingers like Elowen could just disappear. Her smile was wide, nearly fond, but her eyes sparkled with something all too familiar—like a cat entertained by something tiny and helpless.

Elowen attempted a smile, but it barely lifted the corners of her mouth. It was instinct, not emotion—reflex, not response. The kind of smile people wear when they’re treading water, desperate not to be noticed sinking. She folded her arms tighter across her chest, fists lost in fabric, like she was holding herself in. Reina’s words settled behind her ribs, where they could echo unseen.

Reina's locker slid open beside her—cultivated perfection. Inside was a gallery of shiny photographs and pale sticky notes scrawled in feminine handwriting. Photos lined like trophies, captured moments designed to appear unplanned.

Reina laughing in summer's gold light. Reina mid-hug with a girl Elowen scarcely recalled. Reina curled against a boy with gelled hair and toothpaste-commercial grin, both smiling like they'd never known silence. And at the edge—always the edge—Elowen. Out of focus. Half-blink. Facing the wrong direction. A background smudge in someone else's highlight reel. A smudge no one ever saw fit to clean off.

“There’s a party at James’s after the game,” Reina said, her tone light as spun sugar, tossed over her shoulder like a scarf. “You’re coming.” Not a question. The command shimmered beneath the gloss, sharp as a blade tucked in roses. Reina could turn an order into an invitation and leave no room for refusal.

Elowen shifted, eyes on the floor. Her fingers dug into her sleeves until her knuckles vanished. “I’ve got work in the morning—” she started, voice soft, apologetic, trying to shrink back into silence.

Reina rolled her eyes, the gesture loud even without a sound, and turned back to her mirror. “You can sleep when you’re dead, El. God, you’re such a little grandma sometimes.” Her voice was light, teasing—but the words landed with precision. Reina didn’t yell. She didn’t need to. Her cruelty was practiced, exact—a needle slipped beneath the skin, deep enough to sting but never deep enough to leave evidence. Her power wasn’t loud; it was deliberate. Each word was a choice. A scalpel. A hierarchy.

And then the bell screamed—a cold yell of metal that ripped down the hall like a siren—and the thin silence broke. The hall exploded in sound and motion, bodies flowing, lockers crashing, voices surfacing in a wave of talk. Reina didn't tarry. She never did. She merged into the flow as if life streamed for her. Her laughter flashed behind her—sparkling, shining, hollow. Like confetti thrown into the wind: lovely for an instant, uncatchable.

Biology was a box of stale air and buzzing fluorescents. The lights hummed overhead, bleaching the world in a greenish pallor. Mr. Harrow loomed at the front like a wax statue starting to melt, lecturing on ecosystems and carbon cycles in a voice so flat it sounded like it was sucking the room dry of oxygen. The whiff of whiteboard marker and too many warm bodies hung around.

Elowen sat at the back, by the window. Outside: a worn patch of grass and a half-sight of the car park. Her notebook was open in front of her, blank except for the dent where her pen had lain for ten minutes. She looked beyond the glass, beyond the cars, to watch condensation trickle down the window—beads forming, pooling, sliding in silent streaks. Like tears the building was too proud to weep.

The room buzzed around her—muted conversation, shuffling paper—but none of it reached her. She was no longer there. She was somewhere quieter. Somewhere emptier.

"Hey, freak."

The words cut through like rusty metal. Connor James. All jawline and swagger, his letterman jacket stretched like armor over his shoulders. His cologne hung around him like fog. He grinned—like he enjoyed that she would not fight back.

From her position in front, Reina didn't lift her gaze from her phone.

Connor leaned forward and knocked Elowen's pencil off the table to the floor, careless as a cigarette ember. It landed with a resounding clatter. Heat spread across Elowen's face as she ducked down—shame spreading up her spine like fire. Not only humiliation. This was about more than that.

Reina still didn't stir.

After class, Elowen came up behind her, her heart a rumble under her rib cage. "You heard that, didn't you?"

Reina spun around, a slow, lazy smile spreading like the sun on a lion's face. "Connor's just joking around. He teases everybody."

"He calls me names."

Reina's voice plummeted, sugar turning to poison. "You're too sensitive, El. Seriously. Sometimes it's like you need to pity yourself. Like if you're not the victim, you lose yourself.

The words didn't cut—slept. Poison through an opening. Elowen couldn't determine if she was injured, or just. tired. So extremely tired.

She said nothing. She knew. You don't debate with a person who already determined what you are.

Lunch had come. Five minutes by herself, then Reina burst in with a whirlwind of noise and scent, tray clutched in her hand, voice already underway. She talked like a torrent—cheerleading scandals, football fraternities, fashion atrocities. Elowen nodded, smiled quietly, asked nothing. Her position was listener, not joiner.

Then Reina leaned forward, conspiratorial.

"You're fortunate to have me, you know. Most people wouldn't even attempt with someone like you."

She smiled.

Elowen stiffened. There was no viciousness in her voice. That was the worst of it. She meant it. Like Elowen was a favor. A salvage job. Something that barely deserved to be saved.

That evening, the house was quiet. Too quiet. The sort of quiet that seems as if it is waiting to shatter.

Elowen sat at the window, sketchbook out. Her pencil smeared shadows on the page—twisted trees, a girl looking into a black lake. The water's stillness was real. Cruel.

She stood at the lake's edge, pressing harder than she needed to. The water grew darker, heavier—like it could bleed off onto the page and draw her in.

Her chest hurt. She wasn't crying.

Just leaking.

Like a dam with a hairline crack. No cry out. No weep. Only a whisper in her head.

"What if you just let go?