Alex Roy stared at the ceiling of his dimly lit room, the soft hum of his bedside fan filling the silence. His head throbbed with a dull ache that never seemed to leave. Sometimes it sharpened, a sudden spike of pain that made him clutch his temples and grit his teeth. Those were the days when he couldn’t even sit up, when the world blurred into an endless cycle of darkness and discomfort.

Today was one of the better days, though the headache still lingered. It always lingered.

He rarely went to school. Chronic migraines had made regular attendance impossible for as long as he could remember. When he did show up, it was like walking into a movie halfway through, everyone else already caught up while he was left to piece together the plot.

People didn’t dislike him; they just… didn’t notice him. He was a shadow that flitted through the hallways a few days a month, always quiet, always alone.

He wanted friends. He wanted someone to sit with at lunch, someone to text when he was stuck in bed or even better someone who comes over and sit with him when he feels bad. But who would want that? Who would want a friend who disappeared for weeks, who couldn’t even manage to show up for their birthday party or a weekend hangout?

Alex had tried once or twice to join in. He’d mustered the energy to smile, to say hello, to sit near a group in the cafeteria. But the conversations moved too quickly, the jokes flying over his head, references to things he didn’t understand because he hadn’t been there. Eventually, he’d stopped trying. It was easier to be invisible than to feel like he didn’t belong.

On the rare days he did make it to school, he sat alone in the back of the classroom, his notebook open but mostly blank. Teachers didn’t call on him, perhaps out of pity or because they assumed he didn’t know the answers. The other students didn’t talk to him, not out of malice, but because he was an afterthought, a name they barely remembered.