Chapter 3
1132 Words
Cracks in the Glass
Ayla Reyes was seventeen the first time she thought she might be broken.
It happened in the middle of a classroom, under the hum of fluorescent lights, surrounded by friends who thought they knew her.
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The morning had started like any other. She walked into school with her notebooks neatly stacked, uniform pressed, hair pinned back. Her mask was flawless, her smile rehearsed.
“Morning, Ayla!” Camille waved from across the hallway.
“Morning,” Ayla replied, her voice light.
She slipped into her seat by the window, opening her notebook before class began. Outside, the sky was bright, but inside her chest, the air felt heavy.
It had been heavy for weeks now.
The competition, the endless chores, the silence at home, the constant demand to be “the good one”—all of it was piling up. She barely slept anymore. Her hands shook sometimes when she poured herself a glass of water. Her chest ached with something she couldn’t name.
Still, she carried it. Because that’s what she did.
---
That morning, her teacher asked her to present a report. Ayla stood, notes in hand, and began reciting facts about Philippine history. Her voice was steady at first, trained by years of hiding her nerves.
But then, halfway through a sentence, her throat closed.
Her hands trembled, papers rattling audibly. Her heart slammed against her ribs like it wanted out.
She couldn’t breathe.
The classroom blurred. Faces turned toward her, expectant, confused.
“Ayla?” the teacher prompted.
She froze.
Her lungs refused to fill, her vision narrowing. The words she had memorized dissolved into static. All she could hear was the deafening thud of her heartbeat and the whisper in her mind: *You’re failing. You’re failing. You’re failing.*
Camille’s voice broke through. “Are you okay?”
But Ayla couldn’t answer.
Her teacher frowned. “Sit down, Miss Reyes. Someone else will continue.”
Ayla stumbled back to her seat, head bowed, cheeks burning. The room buzzed with whispers.
Inside, she felt like glass cracking.
---
At lunch, Camille nudged her tray closer. “What happened back there? You looked pale.”
“I was just tired,” Ayla said, forcing a smile.
Camille studied her. “You sure? You’ve been… off lately.”
“I’m fine,” Ayla insisted. Because that was the rule: don’t let anyone see.
But inside, she was terrified.
That was the first time she had felt her body betray her, the first time fear had swallowed her whole without warning.
She didn’t have a name for it then. Years later, she would call it a panic attack. But at seventeen, all she knew was that something inside her was shattering, and she had no one to tell.
---
At home, the house was no refuge.
Her father was growing more irritable, snapping at small things—an unwashed plate, a misplaced remote, Mateo’s unfinished homework.
Her mother moved through the house like a shadow, too tired to notice Ayla’s fading smile.
So Ayla slipped further into her notebooks.
*Dear Future Ayla,* she wrote that night, hand cramping from the speed of her scribbles. *Something happened today. I couldn’t breathe in class. Everyone stared at me, and I felt like I was drowning. I don’t know why. I’m scared it’ll happen again. Please tell me it won’t always feel like this. Please tell me you learned how to breathe.*
She pressed her forehead to the page, tears blotting the ink.
---
Despite the cracks, Ayla kept up her role. She still cooked dinner, still aced her exams, still played the part of the reliable daughter.
But little fractures showed.
She snapped at Mateo once when he asked for help with his homework, her voice sharper than intended. His wide eyes filled with hurt, and guilt crushed her immediately.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hugging him close. “I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s okay,” he said, muffled against her shoulder. “You’re just tired.”
He was eleven. He shouldn’t have had to excuse her exhaustion.
That night, Ayla cried herself to sleep.
---
School didn’t give her much reprieve either.
One afternoon, Camille and a few classmates were making plans for the weekend.
“We’re going to the mall,” Camille said brightly. “You should come, Ayla!”
For a moment, temptation flickered. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to be a normal teenager, laughing in food courts and trying on clothes.
But then she thought of the laundry waiting at home, the meals to cook, the endless weight of responsibility.
“I can’t,” she said softly.
“You never can,” another classmate muttered.
The words stung.
Camille frowned at her. “You need to have fun sometimes, Ayla.”
“I will,” she lied.
But fun felt like a language she had forgotten.
---
Her father’s words haunted her most nights.
“She acts like she’s fifty. What kind of daughter is that?”
She began to wonder if he was right. Maybe something *was* wrong with her. Maybe she wasn’t normal.
Maybe she was too quiet, too serious, too much and not enough at the same time.
The thought carved itself into her bones.
---
One evening, unable to sleep, she pulled out her notebook and began sketching absentmindedly. She wasn’t much of an artist, but she drew a girl standing behind a glass wall, smiling while cracks spread across the surface.
Underneath, she wrote:
*If I shatter, will anyone notice?*
She stared at the drawing for a long time, then tucked it into the shoebox with her medals and certificates. A strange collection—proof of achievements and proof of breaking, side by side.
---
Graduation approached. Ayla, of course, was top of her class.
Her teachers praised her. Her classmates envied her. Her relatives congratulated her.
And yet, when she stood on stage with her medal, smiling for the cameras, she felt nothing but hollowness.
Later that night, at the family dinner, her father clinked his glass. “To Ayla,” he said gruffly. “At least she’s good for something.”
Laughter followed.
Ayla forced a smile, but her stomach twisted.
Good for something. Not good enough, never enough—just useful.
Always useful.
---
That night, in her notebook, she wrote:
*Dear Future Ayla, today they celebrated me, but it felt like I wasn’t even there. I’m scared this emptiness will follow me forever. I hope, wherever you are, someone looks at you and doesn’t see your medals or grades or chores. I hope they just see you. And I hope that’s enough.*
She closed the notebook, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
Seventeen, and already so tired of being invisible.
- Writer
