Chapter 4— More Than They See
1278 Words
The next morning, I told myself I wouldn’t look at him.
That whatever happened in class yesterday had been nothing.
A glance. That was all.
People look at people every day. It didn’t have to mean anything just because no one had ever looked at me that way before.
Still… the second I stepped through the school gates, my eyes searched automatically. Pathetic. I adjusted my bag strap and kept walking.
The hallways were just as loud as before. Students leaning against lockers, shouting across corridors, laughing too hard at things that probably weren’t funny.
I kept my head down. No whispers today. That should have felt like relief. Instead, it felt like waiting.
In class, I sat in my usual seat near the back window, notebook open, listening as Mr. Frank wrote equations across the board.
He taught quickly, confidently, like someone used to students struggling to keep up. Most of them were.
Pens paused. Faces frowned. Whispered complaints moved through the room.
I solved the first problem before he finished explaining it. Then the second. Then the third. I kept my eyes down.
Being right quietly was safer than being right out loud.
“Can anyone tell me the next step?” he asked, turning from the board. Silence. I knew it immediately. So I looked at my notebook harder.
His eyes moved around the room. No volunteers.
He called on a boy in the second row. Wrong answer.
Then another girl. Also wrong. I could feel the answer sitting inside me, impatient. Still, I said nothing. Attention had a price. I wasn’t ready to pay it.
Mr. Frank sighed and finished the problem himself.
As he spoke, I noticed movement from the side.
The Boy who looked at him, was two rows over. Watching me.
***
The next class was Literature. Safer ground for everyone else. Worse for me.
Mrs. Katrina loved discussion. Loved opinions. Loved calling on people who wanted to disappear. She stood at the front holding a printed poem.
“Who can explain the meaning of isolation in this piece?”
Hands went up immediately. Wrong hands. People who liked hearing themselves think.
She called on three students in a row. All of them circled the point without touching it. I knew exactly what the poet meant.
The loneliness of being present but unseen.
The ache of being near people but never reached. I knew it because I lived it. Still, I kept quiet.
Mrs. Katrina eyes scanned the room and landed on me. “Aurora.”
My spine stiffened. “Yes, ma’am?”
“You’ve been writing for ten minutes. Share with us.”
Every face turned. Heat climbed my neck. “I… it’s nothing.”
“Then read your nothing.”she said. A few students laughed softly.
I wanted the floor to split open and do me a kindness.
Slowly, I stood. My voice came out quieter than I wanted.
“The poem isn’t about being alone,” I said. “It’s about being surrounded and still unreachable.” The room quieted.
I swallowed and continued. “The speaker doesn’t want company. They want connection. There’s a difference.”
No one laughed now. Mrs. Katrina tilted her head.
“Go on.” She encouraged, I glanced at my notebook.
“It also shows how people can be reduced to what others assume they are. Once that happens, even when you speak, no one really hears you. Only their idea of you.” I continued.
Silence. Thick, full silence.
Then Mrs. Katrina smiled slowly. “Well,” she said, “that was better than the textbook answer.”
A few heads turned harder this time. Not mocking.
Interested. I sat down quickly, pulse racing.
The boy who stared at me differently was now smiling, not teasing but proudly .
Which was somehow worse.
***
By lunch I sat alone under a tree near the far side of the courtyard, pretending to focus on the sandwich I had barely touched.
Around me, everyone seemed to belong somewhere.
Tables filled with loud groups. Couples sharing drinks.
Friends stealing fries and insults.
“Do you always stare at people and then panic?”
I nearly dropped my sandwich. I looked up so fast my neck hurt. It was him.
Standing a few feet away, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a bottle of water.
Up close, he looked even more unfairly composed. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
He glanced at the empty space beside me. “Can I sit,” he said, “or are you going to pass out first?”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“Good,” he said, sitting anyway. I stared at him.
He unscrewed his bottle casually, like sitting beside strange girls who almost choked on lunch was normal behavior.
“You’re staring again,” he said.
“I am not.” I said nervously.
“You are.”
“I’m just confused.”
“That’s fair.”
He took a sip of water. I waited for an explanation.
He said nothing else.
“You can’t just come here and be strange,” I blurted. He turned to me slowly.
“I can’t?”
“No.”
“Interesting. I thought I just did.”
I hated that I almost smiled. Almost. He leaned back against the tree trunk and looked ahead at the courtyard.
“I’m Luca.”
The name fit him too well.
Smooth. Annoying. Easy.
“Aurora,” I said before I could stop myself.
He glanced sideways. “I know.”
Of course he did. Everyone knew. Lorena’s twin. Lorena’s sister.
Something in my expression must have changed because his voice softened slightly.
“I know because the teacher said it,” he added.
“Oh.”
Embarrassing. He saved me from my own thoughts before I could drown in them.
“You always assume the worst?”
“Yes.”
“Efficient.”
I looked down at my sandwich wrapper. “You shouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Why?”
“People will talk.”
“People are already talking.”
I hated how quickly he answered. I hated more that he was right.
He stretched his legs out in front of him. “Let them.”
Easy for him to say. People like him survived attention. People like me were crushed by it.
“You don’t understand,” I said quietly.
“Then explain.”
I blinked. No one had ever asked me that like they actually meant it. I searched for something simple enough to say.
“They only know me as someone else.”
He frowned slightly. “That sounds exhausting.”
I let out a laugh before I could stop it. A real one.
Small. Sudden. Honest. He looked at me then, and there it was again. That same attention from class.
Steady. Unhurried. Dangerous.
“What?” I asked.
“You laugh differently than you speak.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means when you laugh, you forget to be scared.”
My chest tightened. I looked away first. Again. “You don’t know me.”
“No,” he said. “But I’d like to.”
The words should have sounded cheesy. They didn’t. They sounded simple. Which somehow made them worse.
A group of girls passed nearby, glancing over at us. I immediately straightened, suddenly aware of everything again.
My posture. My face. My body. The fact that he was beside me.
One of them whispered something to another and laughed. Heat rushed into my cheeks.
“I should go,” I said quickly.
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