The girl who spoke with her notes

'Liliana Kimberly Mitchell', the girl wrote on the board. She kept her head down, her long brown hair shadowing her face. "We can't hear you!" one teen said from the back of the class. The others burst out laughing. Liliana, however, just sat back in her seat. She was used to this; for the past four years, she had been ridiculed for her speech predicament. Exhibit A: whenever it came to introducing themselves, she would have a minor panic attack before someone made the exact same joke: 'We can't hear you,' I mean, how unoriginal can you get? Exhibit B: She was constantly pushed and shoved around. The chaotic teens tried to see how far they had to go to get a shout or yelp out of her, but it never ended well. At least this was her last year; all she had to do was remain invisible. I mean, how hard can that be? _______________ "Aliyah Frank, Nigel Sylvester..." The teacher read the names off the list with precision, and the class was surprisingly quiet and eager to hear their names. The teacher had been assigning study groups; for the rest of the year, they would interact with this group, and so everyone held their breath, hoping to be paired up with someone they knew. Liliana, contrary to the others, kept her head down; no matter whom she ended up with, she would be the subject of their mockery, and she could potentially live with that. "Nathaniel Hargrave, Claire Allison, Milo Cavendish, and Liliana Mitchell," the teacher finished. Liliana's head snapped up, the color drained off her face, as she looked frantically around the classroom, her eyes meeting with her group's; they had already been watching her, Claire and Milo whispering something along the lines of: "Ain't she the deaf girl?" This rightfully irked the girl. As she rolled her eyes, her eyes then moved to the other side of the classroom. Nathaniel—or Nathan as many call him—had previously been scrolling on his phone, but instead he now turned in her direction, smirking slightly as he caught her eyes. She, in response, crossed her arms, avoiding his eyes as much as possible. No one could see, but her right leg jumped up and down, anxious for what was to come. After all, Nathan is one of her mockers.