Chapter 4: Maybe Someone Sees Me
1363 Words
My blood ran cold.
For a moment, I couldn't move.
The hallway around me was still crowded with students rushing to their classes, but all I could hear were those words.
"If Alicia knew what Benjamin says when she's not around, she'd never speak to him again."
My heart pounded in my chest.
I wanted to turn around and ask what they meant.
I wanted to demand an explanation.
Instead, I stood there frozen.
Maybe I had heard wrong.
Maybe they weren't talking about me.
Maybe there was some other Alicia at Stardom Schools who also knew a Benjamin.
But deep down, I already knew they were talking about me.
Before I could think about it any longer, the warning bell rang.
The two girls hurried away.
The opportunity disappeared.
And somehow, I convinced myself to do the same thing I always did when something made me uncomfortable.
Ignore it.
All through first period, I tried focusing on the lesson, but my thoughts kept drifting.
What exactly had Benjamin supposedly said?
Why would someone say that?
And why did it bother me so much?
The answer was obvious.
Because I cared.
More than I wanted to admit.
The truth was that Benjamin had become a part of my daily routine.
For weeks now, he had been the person who greeted me in the morning, sat with me at lunch, and texted me after school.
He made me laugh.
He made me feel less alone.
Most importantly, he made me feel noticed.
And when you've spent so much of your life feeling invisible, being noticed can feel a lot like being understood.
When the bell rang for the next class, I gathered my books and stepped into the hallway.
"Alicia."
I looked up.
Benjamin was leaning against a locker a few feet away.
The moment he saw me, he smiled.
That smile again.
The one that always seemed genuine.
The one that somehow made me forget every doubt I had.
"Hey."
"Hey."
He fell into step beside me.
"You look worried."
I blinked.
"What?"
"You've been staring at the same page all morning."
I laughed nervously.
"You noticed that?"
"Of course I did."
The answer came so naturally that I wasn't prepared for it.
Of course I did.
Three simple words.
Yet they settled somewhere deep inside me.
Because nobody noticed things about me.
Not usually.
Not the way Benjamin seemed to.
He noticed when I was quiet.
He noticed when I was distracted.
He noticed when I was nervous.
Maybe that's why being around him felt different.
Maybe that's why I kept wanting to believe the best about him.
"You can tell me if something's wrong, you know," he said.
For a second, I almost told him.
About the girls.
About what I had overheard.
About how confused I felt.
But something stopped me.
"I'm okay."
Benjamin studied my face for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"If you say so."
The rest of the school day passed surprisingly quickly.
At lunch, Benjamin sat across from me as usual.
We talked about classes, teachers, and random things that made us both laugh.
At one point, he accidentally spilled juice on himself and blamed the cup.
"The cup attacked me."
I laughed so hard that people at nearby tables looked over.
Benjamin pointed dramatically at the cup.
"You all saw it."
I shook my head.
"You're ridiculous."
"That's rude."
"But true."
He placed a hand over his chest.
"I can't believe you would say that."
For the first time in a long time, lunch didn't feel like something I had to survive.
It felt enjoyable.
Normal.
The kind of lunch break other students probably had every day.
And honestly?
I loved it.
When the final bell rang, Benjamin walked beside me toward the school gate.
The California sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky, painting everything golden.
Students streamed out of the building around us.
For once, I wasn't walking alone.
"You know," Benjamin said suddenly, "I used to think you hated everyone."
I nearly choked.
"What?"
He laughed.
"You're always so quiet."
"I'm shy."
"I figured that out eventually."
Eventually.
The word made me smile.
Because it meant he had taken the time to figure it out.
He hadn't just looked at me and made assumptions.
Or at least, that's what I believed.
"You know what I think?" he asked.
"What?"
"I think people don't really know you."
Something about the way he said it made my chest tighten.
Not in a bad way.
In a way that felt strangely emotional.
Because it was true.
Most people didn't know me.
Most people never bothered to.
But Benjamin had.
Or at least it felt like he had.
Before getting into Dad's car, I found myself smiling.
The smile stayed all the way home.
It stayed through dinner.
It stayed while I did homework.
It even stayed while I lay in bed later that night.
For once, the loneliness felt smaller.
For once, the emptiness didn't seem quite so overwhelming.
Maybe things were finally changing.
Maybe all those nights spent crying into my pillow had been leading somewhere.
Maybe I wasn't as invisible as I thought.
Maybe someone actually saw me.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Benjamin.
"Goodnight, Alicia :)"
I smiled immediately.
Then another message arrived.
I had fun today.
My heart fluttered.
Before I could reply, a third message appeared.
Honestly, you're my favorite person to talk to.
I stared at the screen.
Nobody had ever said something like that to me before.
Not a friend.
Not a classmate.
Nobody.
Slowly, a smile spread across my face.
Maybe someone really did see me.
Maybe someone finally understood me.
But while I sat there smiling at my phone, completely unaware of what was happening elsewhere, Benjamin was sitting in a group chat with several of his friends.
One of them sent a message.
Bro, are you still talking to that Alicia girl?
Another replied.
"I thought you'd get bored by now 😂"
Benjamin's typing bubble appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, he sent a reply.
And when his friends read it, the entire group chat exploded with laughter.
Because the version of Benjamin that Alicia knew was not the same version his friends knew.
Not even close.
- Writer
