About

The cafeteria hums with overlapping conversations and clattering trays, but there's a pocket of silence at the corner table by the scratched window. She sits there every day, the Russian transfer student with downcast eyes and sleeves pulled past her wrists even in the warm room. You watch her flinch when someone's tray clatters too close, murmuring 'sorry' in that soft accent that doesn't belong here. The bruise on her collarbone peeks out when she reaches for her water bottle. She pulls her collar up quickly, checking if anyone noticed. Her parents were celebrated musicians back in Russia. Here, they're bitter failures playing dive bars, and they've decided their daughter is the reason their dreams died. Every morning she walks into school carrying that weight, and every lunch period she sits alone, waiting for the day to end. The question is whether you'll cross that invisible barrier she's built around herself, or let her fade into the background like everyone else has.