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The Hallway

Chapter Thirteen

The hallway between classes is a battlefield. Lockers slam like gunshots, voices rise and crash against each other, and everyone moves with sharp elbows and fast steps, desperate to get somewhere else.

I keep my head down. If you walk fast enough, look busy enough, you disappear into the blur. That’s the trick. Being invisible is safer than being seen.

But invisibility doesn’t always work. A shoulder slams into mine, hard enough to make my books spill onto the linoleum. The laugh that follows cuts sharper than the shove. “Watch it,” a boy mutters, like I’m the one who ran into him.

I kneel, gathering my papers before the crowd tramples them. Nobody stops to help. They just keep moving, like I’m part of the floor. My cheeks burn, but I bite it back, swallowing the heat of the words I’ll never say out loud.

From the corner of my eye, I see the kid with the They/Them pin walking down the hall. Their steps are steady, their chin lifted, as if the noise around them doesn’t touch them. It makes my chest ache with something between envy and admiration.

I clutch my books to my chest and push through the crowd, wishing I could carry myself that way. Wishing the hallway didn’t feel like a gauntlet I barely survive each day.

But the truth is, I’m still hiding. And every slam of a locker reminds me: hiding is a full-time job.