No one gets love

The girl who didn't want to be seen

Chapter two: The Girl Who Didn't Want to Be Seen

She woke up with the same heaviness in her chest she had learned to carry like a second skin. Another day, another attempt to survive.

School mornings weren’t exciting anymore. They were just routines—brush, uniform, backpack, leave. She always tried to leave early, not because she liked being on time, but because she hated entering a room where everyone was already seated. She didn’t want to be noticed. Being “the new girl” wasn’t something she wore proudly.

At the bus stop, standing alone, she stared at the road as if her thoughts might appear there. Instead, memories did.

She remembered when her father used to drop her off at school. How different life was then—simpler, warmer. But everything had changed. Was it because of that incident? Or had she never really known her father at all?

Her chest tightened at the thought. The bus arrived and interrupted her memories. She climbed on silently, sat by the window, and watched the world blur past.

She got off at her stop and walked the short distance to the school gates. The stares, the whispers—they hadn’t stopped. Maybe they never would. How long would they keep seeing her as “the new girl”?

Inside the class, she needed to borrow a notebook for the first subject. She asked Alsa—a junior she vaguely knew—because talking to strangers still made her skin crawl. It felt safer asking someone familiar. That decision would turn out to be her biggest mistake. But of course, she didn’t know that yet.

Alsa had a best friend—Malika. What Alsa truly was, even Malika hadn’t figured out yet. But time had its ways of revealing people.

The day passed slowly. She covered her notes, preparing for the pre-finals. The principal offered her an option—to skip the exams since she had just joined. She refused. Hard work was her only friend now, and maybe… just maybe, it would become her survival.

During one of the papers, a boy from 9th grade entered their class to charge his phone. Seriously? she thought. Is this what happens here now?

Later, during the break, she stepped into her old class—9th grade. That boy, Abdullah, noticed her. “Haya Sulaiman, go back to your own class,” he said.

She didn’t respond. But the girls who were once her friends looked at her. One of them snapped, “Why do you care?”

That moment said it all—this wasn’t her class anymore. She didn’t belong there. But she didn’t belong in the new one either. If she stayed lost between two, she'd always be a stranger on both sides.

When she returned from break, she heard that boy’s voice again. Commenting. Mocking. Like yesterday. She didn’t react. She was used to being talked about. She’d been listening to such things for too long now.

But she didn’t know that this time, someone else had noticed her too. And this time, silence wouldn’t save her.

Days passed. She completed all her papers. She didn’t fail a single subject—even after a two-year gap. No one at home even noticed. Not her mother, who barely moved from one corner of the house. Not her sisters—three of whom stayed home doing nothing, and one who left for work and said nothing at all.

One day, during break, it happened again. Abdullah—the boy with the voice—pushed her slightly while walking past. It wasn’t new. He had always teased her. She thought he was a newcomer too. But no. He had been studying here since grade 3.

Now even her friends had started using her. They barely talked to her unless they needed something. Only two or three girls still spoke to her kindly. They exchanged numbers, chatted after school, and tried to fill the empty gap those two years had left behind.

But there was another presence in her life now. A boy she despised—Abdullah. No. Not just Abdullah.

Chaudhry Abdullah.

He annoyed her daily. Teased her. Mocked her. Tormented her.

She moved from grade 8 to grade 9.

They moved from grade 9 to grade 10.

Their paths shifted—but not far enough.

Now, Alsa sat with Malika. Haya sat alone or with people she didn’t know. The boy named Ibrar came back too. She had seen him before but never spoken. He stared at her sometimes—intense, unreadable, unsettling. He was Abdullah’s friend.

And in the background of all this chaos, another triangle brewed.

Shahab Khan—Alsa’s secret crush—was interested in someone else. Rabia Afridi. Her friend. Both of them were Khans. Maybe that’s what made it easier for him.

Then came that cursed day.

The day where both Shahab and Abdullah targeted her. “Your eyes look like frog eyes. So big and stupid-looking,” Abdullah laughed.

And Shahab? He joined in.

What she didn’t know yet… was that someone powerful in school—someone trusted—was also watching.

The vice principal.

A woman hopelessly in love with Shahab Khan.

But Haya didn’t know that yet.

That story would begin in the next chapter…