Chapter 1
The classroom door is still closed when she arrives.
As usual, she chats about trivial things with the people she considers her friends, carefully avoiding talking about herself. There’s nothing to say anyway.
The teacher shows up a handful of seconds before the bell rings. Without thinking, she sits in her usual seat: front row, all the way to the left, by the window.
Months ago, she decided it was the best seat. Close enough to the teacher’s desk to spread her things out over more space, but also right next to the window — the perfect escape route whenever reality becomes too dull to endure.
Lost in her thoughts, she watches the reflection the glass throws back at her.
Her chocolate-brown eyes stare at her intensely. Suddenly she remembers the words of her favorite English teacher, spoken the year before, almost absentmindedly:
“You’d be so beautiful if you had blue eyes.”
She sighs.
It’s always the same thing, she thinks. Almost remarkable. Almost beautiful. Almost right. But never quite.
She looks away. A lump forms in her throat.
As if I’m going to start crying in class, she thinks bitterly.
Her lips catch her attention next. Full, well-shaped, a pink so deep it’s nearly red. Those, she’s always liked.
Her high cheekbones give her a cherubic look, despite her fifteen years already well underway.
She takes advantage of the few seconds left before class starts to smooth her wavy brown hair with a simple movement of her hand.
The familiar noise of the other students fills the room.
The moment is gone.
As the students pour into the classroom in a deafening buzz of pointless anecdotes, the scent of cheap, sugary perfume floods the air — too strong, too clingy — and it triggers a dull headache behind Mia’s eyes.
When a few of them pass through the row beside her seat, she catches laughter, comments spoken just loudly enough for her to hear.
“She’s wearing the same outfit again — is she poor or what?”
“I’d be so ashamed if I were her.”
A string of immature, vicious giggles follows.
Mia focuses on the straight lines in her notebook and sighs to herself.
Here we go again.
…
She is a good student.
Truly good.
Not the top of the class — never quite — but always right behind, like a diligent shadow. The one who studies. Always. The one who knows the dates, the formulas, the definitions, because learning has become an acceptable refuge.
Studying is turning chaos into color-coded flashcards.
It’s believing, for a few moments, that the world runs on clear rules.
Here, an answer is right or wrong. Not somewhere in between.
Sometimes she reminds the teacher he mentioned a test. Not to stand out. Just because she remembers. Because knowing what’s coming reassures her.
But she never really understands why people look at her the way they do.
Is it because she’s the nerd?
The one who works too hard.
The one who raises the average?
Or is it simply because she is… her?
She always hesitates before raising her hand. Her answer is correct, but her voice still trembles. Someone snickers behind her. Not loudly. Just enough.
When she stands to change classrooms, her pencil case slips off the desk. Pens scatter across the floor as if they’re trying to escape.
“Sorry, sorry…”
She apologizes too quickly. Too loudly. As if she’s apologizing for existing. Her cheeks burn. She gathers everything up, heart racing, convinced that this tiny moment will be etched into everyone’s memory—
when, in reality, no one is already thinking about it anymore.
The day moves forward like that.
A stack of detentions.
Swallowed thoughts.
Smiles placed in the wrong moments.
When the bell finally rings, relief hits instantly — but it’s incomplete. She’s exhausted, as if she’s spent the entire day playing a role in a badly written play, without ever being given the script.
…
She gets home. Home is a generous word, considering it’s just an ordinary apartment: three bedrooms, a bathroom far too narrow, and a kitchen with worn-out tiles. Her mother likes to tell anyone who’ll listen that she did the decorating, because her husband has no taste. And yet the place feels frozen in the nineties: salmon-colored tiles in the living room, garish carpeting in the bedrooms, mismatched curtains, and furniture that looks like it’s been recycled from old lives—as if it’s already lived too much to belong here.
The apartment is empty, and yet she feels like she takes up too much space in it.
She drops her bag, slips off her shoes, and leaves them in the entryway like two abandoned thoughts. She glances at her watch. 6:30 p.m. Already. The numbers feel like they’re accusing her of something.
In the kitchen, the faint smell of cold pizza hangs in the air — a leftover trace from lunch reheated earlier. The countertop sticks slightly beneath her fingers. She opens the fridge the way you open an arithmetic problem that’s too difficult for the end of a day like this.
Almost empty.
Or filled with things that expired a day or two ago. Too late to eat, too early to throw away.
She isn’t hungry.
But she doesn’t really have a choice.
A packet of ravioli. A can of tomatoes.
With the right seasoning, they’ll be happy, she sighs to herself.
The water has barely started to boil when the front door opens.
Right on time for them.
Too early for her.
“It’s still not ready? What the hell were you doing?”
She nods. The sound of the television settles in immediately. Bluish light flickers on the walls. Serious faces talk about important things.
“Today at school—”
“Shh.”
“Just listen.”
Her fork draws useless circles in the plate. The cutlery clinks too loudly in the silence.
At nine o’clock, she’s in her room.
This room is her sanctuary.
Every inch of wall is covered in memories — moments precious to her. Here, a target from a shooting game her childhood crush gave her after trying—unsuccessfully—to win her a giant unicorn plush. Right beside it, a poster of a sleeping lion, like a symbolic guardian of the place.
Above her bed, a whole constellation of trinkets and garlands hangs — invitations to daydream and escape. A Chinese lantern, strings of fairy lights, and her incredible collection of strange Christmas ornaments, suspended there like fragments of possible worlds.
Here, there are no rules.
Just her mind exploding against walls too white to build a refuge on.
She lies on the deep red shag rug, one hand stroking the soft fibers, the other absentmindedly scratching behind her dog’s ear. The steady rumble of her breathing fills the room, comforting. Here, her life belongs to her—just a little.
A soft knock at the door.
Her twin brother pokes his head through the crack, as if making sure he isn’t interrupting anything important.
For a moment, she’s struck by how much they resemble each other.
His face is framed by dark brown hair, almost black, slightly wavy. His deep brown eyes are ringed with purplish circles, too pronounced to ignore. He stayed up gaming until dawn again, she thinks easily.
Delicate freckles scatter across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, remnants of their last trip to Italy, to their paternal grandparents’.
She looks at him a second too long.
His voice pulls her out of it.
“You busy?” he says, raising an eyebrow.
Without waiting for an answer, he slips inside and collapses flat onto the giant blue beanbag in the center of the room.
He doesn’t say anything.
Neither does Mia.
For several minutes, they simply stay there, side by side. Words are unnecessary. The other’s presence is enough. It’s right.
Then, when the moment finally feels appropriate, two words break the silence:
“You okay?”
And for the first time today, Mia knows it’s a real question. Not a habit. Not politeness.
She doesn’t answer.
When her brother leaves the room, she stays still for a moment, then gets up.
Time to get to work.
After he leaves, Mia sits at her desk. She puts on her headphones. Mozart. Symphony No. 25. Again. The notes spin in circles, faithful.
The pages fill up.
Chemical formulas.
German vocabulary.
Euclidean divisions.
She yawns. Rubs her eyes. Keeps going anyway.
2:17 a.m.
Silently, she turns off the lamp and slips into bed. In the dark, the scenarios settle in: tomorrow’s classes. The meal to prepare. The conversations to survive without making waves.
Her dog snores.
Mia stares at the ceiling.
Tomorrow is already coming.
