Chapter 11 — Smiles That Don’t Reach
1367 Words
By Friday morning, Lena had perfected the mask.
It was delicate work, the kind of thing she had to put on piece by piece before she even left her room. Smooth the hair. Braid it tight enough that no one could tug it loose. Check for stray threads on her sweater. Force a little color into her cheeks so she didn’t look like she hadn’t slept. And then the most important part,the smile. Just wide enough to look real, but never too wide. If it stretched too far, Nate would roll his eyes and ask, What’s wrong with you? If it drooped, he’d mutter, You look miserable. Stop dragging me down.
So the smile had to be just right. Balanced. Practiced.
By now it came as naturally as breathing.
The walk to school was quiet. Nate was a few steps ahead, as usual, earbuds slung loose around his neck, one hand scrolling through his phone. He laughed at something he saw, the sound short and sharp, and Lena found herself smiling faintly, though not because of his joke. It was just easier to smile when he did. Easier to hide.
Her shoulders tensed as the school came into view. There they were Jessica and her cheer squad clustered near the double doors like they owned them. Which, in a way, they did. Their laughter carried across the courtyard, sharp and bright, aimed at no one in particular but somehow meant for Lena all the same.
She slowed down. Her stomach lurched like it always did when she spotted them, but she forced herself to keep walking.
“Why are you lagging behind?” Nate asked suddenly, glancing over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed, sharp as a blade.
“I’m not,” she said quickly, quickening her steps until she was level with him. Her heart was hammering too fast. Jessica’s gaze tracked her like a hawk.
Nate held her stare for a second longer, suspicion in his expression. Then he shrugged and turned back to his phone. “Whatever.”
Relief crashed through her so fast she nearly stumbled. If he had pressed, if he had asked one more question, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to keep the lie straight.
But he didn’t. He never really did. And maybe that was a blessing. Or maybe it wasn’t.
---
The bullying wasn’t loud. It wasn’t the kind of thing teachers noticed, or even Nate with his sharp eyes and sharper tongue. The cheerleaders were cleverer than that.
It was whispers behind her back, the scrape of laughter that cut off the moment she turned around.
It was finding her shoes soaked in toilet water one afternoon, the squish in every step echoing down the hall as students pointed and snickered.
It was opening her locker to find gum smeared along the handle, sticky and sweet-smelling, gluing her fingers together until she had to scrub them raw in the bathroom sink.
It was her notebook disappearing between classes and reappearing later, the words NATE’S CHARITY CASE gouged across the front cover in deep, angry letters.
Each time, Lena told herself it was nothing. She patched things up. She bought new shoes with the little money she had. She ripped off the notebook cover. She carried tissues in her bag in case it happened again. And when Nate noticed because of course he noticed she smiled and lied.
“Wanted new shoes anyway.”
“Notebook got ruined, so I redid it.”
“Just clumsy, spilled something on my hands.”
Each lie stacked on top of the last, heavy stones in her pockets, weighing her down.
And Nate believed her. Or maybe he didn’t care enough not to.
---
Riley was worse.
The cheerleaders made her life miserable in the daylight. Riley made her dread the shadows.
He didn’t jeer or laugh. He didn’t write cruel things in her notebooks or whisper her name across the cafeteria. He lingered.
He brushed past her in the hall when there was more than enough room. His shoulder bumping hers, his hand grazing the small of her back, fingers tugging lightly on her braid like it was some game he knew she couldn’t call him on.
Once, he leaned down in the middle of the crowded gym and murmured, “Smells nice,” before walking off with a crooked smile.
She had gone home that night and washed her hair three times, scrubbing until her scalp stung. Didn’t matter. She could still feel his breath ghosting against her ear.
She told no one.
Because how could she? If she said something to Nate, he’d laugh, or worse, he’d smirk and say, Riley? You’re imagining things. And if she told the teachers, the cheerleaders would make her pay twice as hard.
So she locked it inside. Let it eat away at her, piece by piece.
---
The act of hiding it all became a second skin.
She knew how to cover bruised wrists from where her locker door had been slammed shut on her arm. She knew how to laugh off the way her books fell from her desk because someone had loosened the bolts when she wasn’t looking. She knew how to smile at Nate when he tossed her one of his sharp remarks, pretending it didn’t sting when he called her “pathetic” for dropping a pencil in class.
At night, in the quiet of her room, she let herself crumble. But only then.
During the day, she held the mask in place.
The worst part wasn’t even the bullying. It was the silence that came with it the constant fear of being found out. Every time Nate looked at her a little too long, she braced for the question: What’s going on with you?
But he never asked.
And she wasn’t sure if she was grateful for that or crushed by it.
---
One Thursday afternoon, she found herself alone in the bathroom, hands shaking as she peeled a wad of sticky gum off her locker key. The cheerleaders had struck again. She had a test in ten minutes, and her key was coated in pink slime that clung to her nails and left sugar-sweet residue on her palms.
The door creaked open, and Jessica’s laughter filled the room.
“Oops,” she said, voice dripping with innocence. “Locker troubles again?”
Lena froze, heart pounding. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t give them the satisfaction.
Jessica’s heels clicked against the tile as she stepped closer. “You should really be more careful. Things keep… happening to you.”
The other girls giggled.
Lena swallowed hard, fighting to keep her face blank. “I can handle it,” she said softly, mostly to herself.
Jessica leaned in, her perfume sharp and cloying. “We’ll see.”
And just like that, they were gone, leaving only the echo of their laughter behind.
Lena scrubbed her hands clean under the faucet, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her smile had cracked. Just for a second. She fixed it quickly before anyone else could see.
---
By Friday night, the weight of the week pressed so heavily on her chest she could barely breathe.
She sat on the bleachers, pretending to watch Nate’s basketball game. He was on fire tonight, darting across the court with the kind of confidence that made people cheer his name. He didn’t even look up at her once.
She clapped when everyone else did, forced her smile into place, and ignored the way the cheerleaders’ whispers curled around her like smoke.
When the game ended, the crowd erupted. Nate jogged off the court, high-fiving his teammates. He didn’t glance her way until he was halfway down the hall.
“You coming or what?” he called back.
“Yeah,” she said, standing quickly.
Her smile was still there, perfect as always.
And no one not Nate, not the teachers, not even Riley watching her from the far end of the gym saw the way her hands trembled as she gripped her bag.
No one saw the way she was drowning beneath it all.
Because she had gotten too good at hiding.
- Writer
