The heavy oak doors of Westbridge High always felt a little heavier on Tuesdays.
I had spent the entire morning trying to make myself as invisible as humanly possible.
My oversized gray hoodie was basically a shield against the rest of the world.
For months, the social hierarchy of the tenth grade had been firmly established.
People like Chloe ran the second-floor hallway, while people like me stuck to the periphery.
It wasn't that I was actively bullied every single day.
Mostly, I just existed in a strange kind of social vacuum.
My only real anchor was the geometry notebook resting inside my battered canvas backpack.
Math was the one place where things actually made logical sense.
That sense of safety shattered completely during fourth-period lunch.
The cafeteria was suffocatingly loud and smelled like burnt french fries.
I managed to secure my usual isolated spot near the emergency exit.
Opening my binder, I laid out my freshly sharpened pencils and my completed problem set.
The sun was cutting diagonally through the wired glass windows, casting long shadows across the linoleum.
Across the room, Chloe was holding court at the central table.
She was laughing loudly, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
Her friends—Maya and Jessica—were nodding along with exaggerated enthusiasm.
I kept my head down, pretending to intensely study theorem four.
Then, the ambient noise of the room seemed to shift registers.
Footsteps clicked sharply against the floor, coming closer by the second.
I didn't look up immediately, hoping whoever it was would just walk past.
The footsteps stopped abruptly right beside my table.
A shadow fell across my neatly organized papers.
I slowly raised my eyes to find Chloe standing right there.
She wasn't smiling, but her eyes held a cold, calculating amusement.
In her right hand, she clutched a large venti iced caramel macchiato.
Condensation was dripping heavily down the sides of the clear plastic cup.
"Is anyone sitting here?" she asked, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness.
My mouth felt completely dry.
"No, go ahead," I managed to whisper, pulling my bag closer to my knees.
She didn't sit down.
Instead, she rested both hands on the edge of my table, invading my personal space.
"You know, you've been staring at me all week," she lied smoothly, her tone dropping an octave.
"I haven't been looking at you at all," I replied, my voice trembling slightly.
"Don't catch an attitude with me," she snapped back instantly.
Without breaking eye contact, she raised the plastic cup.
Her fingers hovered over the lid for a fraction of a second.
Then, she deliberately inverted the cup over my math homework.
A thick, dark wave of espresso and melted caramel poured directly onto my pages.
The paper instantly turned translucent and crumpled under the weight of the liquid.
Dark brown puddles pooled around my pencils and splashed onto the wooden bench.
