By the time I stood up, Madison Cole was laughing with my glasses in her hand—and everyone in the classroom knew I had finally run out of patience.
My name is Nora Bennett, and at sixteen, I had perfected the art of being overlooked.
I sat near the back window in Room 214 at Ridgemont High, where the afternoon sun turned the dust above our desks gold. My notebook was open to a clean page, my pencil moved in small careful lines, and the old wall clock clicked louder than anyone's voice.
That was how I liked it.
Quiet made it easier to think. Quiet made it easier to finish my assignments before the bell. Most of all, quiet made people forget I was there.
Madison never forgot.
She sat two rows ahead with her purple hair curled around the collar of her red-and-white varsity jacket. Her friend Kelsey Reed usually followed close behind, wearing an olive hoodie, ripped jeans, and the same striped beanie she wore almost every day.
They were the kind of girls who could turn a hallway into a stage without saying a word. When Madison entered a room, people moved their backpacks. When Kelsey laughed, everyone checked to see what was funny.
When I entered, no one looked up.
That was exactly what Madison liked about me.
"Nora," she called that morning.
I kept writing.
My history teacher, Mr. Alvarez, was at the whiteboard explaining the causes of a labor strike. The projector hummed above him, and someone near the front was tapping a pen against a metal desk.
"Nora," Madison said again, louder this time. "Did you hear me?"
I placed my pencil beside the notebook and looked over my shoulder.
Madison smiled as if we were friends.
"Can I help you?"
Kelsey leaned against the desk behind her. "Wow. She talks."
A few students glanced back, then quickly looked away. Nobody wanted to become part of Madison's entertainment.
I had learned that lesson in September, when she knocked my lunch onto the cafeteria floor and told everyone I had dropped it because I was too busy "studying how to be invisible."
When I tried to report it, the lunch monitor said Madison was probably joking.
When I stopped bringing lunch, my mother started leaving granola bars in my backpack.
She never asked why.
She knew I hated making a problem bigger than it already was.
Madison tapped one of her silver necklaces. "What are you writing?"
"Notes."