Lila Harper sat in the middle of the crowded classroom, yet she had never felt more invisible.

The teacher's voice droned on about history—dates and wars and people long gone—but Lila wasn't listening. She was watching the other students. The way they passed notes under desks, whispering secrets she would never be part of. The way they giggled and nudged each other when the teacher wasn't looking. The way they belonged.

She had never belonged.

Since childhood, she had tried. She had reached out, smiled at the right moments, offered her friendship in ways big and small. But every time, she had been ignored. Or worse—mocked.

She still remembered the sting of her first rejection.

Five-year-old Lila, holding out a hand to a girl in pigtails.

"Can I play with you?"

"No."

It had never changed. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she wished for it, no one ever wanted her.

She had spent years wondering what was wrong with her. Why she wasn't enough. But eventually, she stopped asking. She stopped trying.

Now, she simply existed.

—

The lunch bell rang. Chairs scraped against the floor as students rushed out, eager to escape the classroom. Lila walked slower, taking her time packing up. She already knew what waited for her outside—nothing.

The cafeteria was always the worst.

She walked past tables filled with laughter, trays crowded together, conversations overlapping. She wasn't part of any of it. She never had been.

She took her usual seat at the farthest corner of the room, her tray in front of her, untouched. No one looked her way.

Except when they did.

"Hey, Lila," a voice called.

She stiffened. She knew that voice. Emily Carter—the girl with the perfect smile, the one everyone adored. The kind of person Lila had spent her whole life wishing she could be.

Lila glanced up, hesitant. "Hi?"

Emily leaned on the table, grinning. "You always sit alone, huh? Must be kinda depressing."

A few of her friends snickered behind her.

Lila looked down, her throat tightening. She knew where this was going. It always went the same way.

Emily sighed dramatically. "Y'know, maybe if you weren't so weird, people would actually talk to you."

Lila's fingers curled into fists beneath the table.

"Oh well," Emily continued, flicking her hair back. "Enjoy your lunch, loser."

She walked away, her friends laughing with her, their voices fading into the noise of the cafeteria.

Lila sat there, unmoving. The food on her tray remained untouched.

She had always been alone. She had always been unwanted.

And she had always thought it would be this way forever.

—

But there was one place where things had been different.

One place where she had mattered.

Home.

—

Her parents had been the only people who truly saw her.

No matter how bad the day had been, no matter how much she had cried in the bathroom at school, they had been there. Her father would tell her silly jokes to make her laugh. Her mother would hold her close, whispering words of comfort.

"You're special, Lila. Just because they don't see it doesn't mean it's not true."

They had done everything they could to make her happy.

And then, one day, they were gone.

—

It had been raining that night.

Her parents had been coming home late. Lila had been waiting by the window, watching headlights flicker on the wet streets, excited to see them.

The phone had rung instead.

Her grandfather had answered. He had listened in silence, his face pale, his grip on the receiver tight.

And then he had turned to her.

She would never forget the look in his eyes.

She would never forget the words.

"Lila… I'm so sorry."

—

Since that night, everything had changed.

She had moved into her grandfather's old house—a quiet, lonely place, much like her own heart. She had stopped speaking much. Stopped trying.

Stopped believing there was a point to any of it.

Now, she simply existed.

Silent. Unseen.

A girl no one ever noticed.