Everyone in this school wants to be seen. Heard. Worshipped, even.

Except her.

She walks around like she’s trying to become invisible. hood up when she can, hair down in her face when she can’t. Doesn’t sit with anyone at lunch. Doesn’t raise her hand in class. Just reads, draws in her copybook, and disappears the second the bell rings.

So obviously, I’m obsessed.

Not in a weird way. Just… curious. I’ve been here my whole life. Everyone knows everything about everyone, and it’s all bullshit. But her? She’s new. She’s real. She hasn’t learned how to fake it like the rest of us yet.

I catch her behind the school one day, sitting on the grass, leaned against the wall. I’m supposed to be in study hall, but I don’t go. I just light a cigarette and walk over like I’ve got nothing better to do. Which, to be fair, I don’t.

“You always hide out here?” I ask, kicking a stone toward her foot.

She doesn’t jump. Doesn’t even look surprised to see me. Just shrugs, eyes still on the grass.

“It’s quiet” she says.

“Yeah” I nod, flopping down beside her. “People are loud. Loud and stupid.”

She glances sideways at me, a little skeptical. “Aren’t you loud?”

“Loud, yes. Stupid? Debatable.”

She actually smiles, small and brief, but it’s there.

I lean back against the wall, eyes on the sky. “You know, most people try harder to fit in.”

“Maybe I don’t want to” she says, voice soft but steady.

God, I like her.

“You ever go out?” I ask. “Like, parties. Bonfires. Standing around in the dark pretending we’ve got something to say.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not really my thing.”

“Fair enough,” I say. “It’s not really mine either. But I go anyway.”

“Why?”

I glance at her. She’s not looking at me, she’s watching a bird hop across the field like that’s more interesting than anything I’ve got to say. And maybe it is.

“‘Cause sometimes” I say, “you find people who don’t belong there either. And you talk. Or you don’t. But you know they see through it too.”

She’s quiet. Then: “You think I’m one of those people?”

I look at her fully now. No smirk. No sarcasm.

“I know you are.”

She doesn’t respond, but I see her fingers twitch against the grass, like she wants to say something but can’t. I don’t push. I just lie there beside her in the quiet she likes so much.

And in my head, I wonder what the hell this is. Why a girl who barely speaks makes me feel more seen than all the noise I’ve ever made trying to be noticed.

Maybe this is what we’ve all been looking for in the wrong places.

Maybe this, her is what real feels like.