"Of all the songs in the world, you had to pick this one?" I question exasperatedly, turning to face Lucas.

"You ready?" Lucas asks, ignoring my question as he grips his microphone.

I grip my own as I return, "No."

"Great!" Lucas exclaims. "Hit it, Buena!"

With a huge grin on her face, Buena begins, closing her eyes and moving her body to the rhythm of her fingers, having the emotion of a great musician.

I take a deep breath, murmuring without enthusiasm, "What's your name?" I sigh and internally groan. "Where did you grow up? What color are your eyes?"

"Louder, Paris!" Lucas cheers, giving me a huge grin.

"You're enjoying this too much," I return, narrowing my eyes darkly.

"Have we met?" The words flow forth with more confidence as I ignore the lyrics and focus on the beat. "Passed by on the street?" My eyes flutter closed. "Do we wish on the same star at night?" I question quietly.

"Dear happily ever after," we sing together. "I'm waiting for mine to begin."

"Until then..." I sing myself.

I pause, my voice stopping before the chorus. I feel a memory washing up to the shore of my brain. Suddenly it's like a violent storm as the memory wishes to break free and control me. I shake my head and try to continue, but it's as though my voice refuses to come forth. I swallow, my eyes squeezed shut as the panic begins to seep through.

"Paris?" a voice calls from near or far, I can't tell. I can't even tell the general direction, nor whether it is Lucas or Buena's.

I sink slowly to the floor, my legs no longer wishing to hold me up. Strong arms grab my shoulders as the desperate yelling continues.

Weakly, I find the words to say, "There is no such thing as 'prince charming' or 'true love'. Nor happy endings. So why should I sing about lies?"

Silence fills the room, creating an air of uncomfortable as I breathe it in shakily.

Then Lucas says quietly, "Come on, Paris. Please, have a little imagination."

"Only once you have some common sense," I say, breaking free from what I now realize is his grasp. I rise to my feet, blinking at the anger and embarrassment trying to blur my vision.

I don't like arguing with people. The energy it takes to fight always makes me feel deflated. But something inside me is fueling my anger, and I'm not going to fight to keep it inside.

"I knew I never should have agreed to sing," I say, my voice rising in pitch. I let the mic fall to the floor, covering my ears at the painful noise that follows. I frown at the speakers, before turning back to Lucas. "I probably sounded like a dying cow, anyways."

Before either can say a word, I exit the room, leaving Buena and Lucas' shocked faces in my wake.

My feet lead me to the bathroom, where I slip inside without a sound.

That's when I hear soft slippers tap down the hallway, heading in the direction of the bathroom. I quickly leap into a stall, locking the door and climbing the toilet to hide my feet from sight.

"Eiffel?" a female voice calls softly, her voice echoing through the small room. "I heard you come in here. Are you alright?"

No.

I'm not alright.

Plus, now everyone thinks I'm incredibly sensitive, which I'm not.

"Please go away," I reply, my voice barely audible for her to hear. "The world might be ending, so it would be a good idea to leave before the roof starts collapsing."

"You know Lucas talks about you a lot, don't you?" the girl questions as I hear her stepping closer. "That's why I thought you guys were dating." She pauses right in front of the stall door. "But now I know that you are just friends." She laughs softly.

"We're not—" I stop myself.

Are we friends?

Is that what people think?

"Whatever," I return, stepping off the toilet and onto the tile floor. "I have to go to my next class."

But as I slip past Lillian, I do my best to hide the small smile rising to my lips.

She had been concerned for me. A stranger who she had met just today.

———————

"What is the capital of Chile?" our geography questions the class with her love of 'pop quizzes'.

She searches the room for a victim, thankfully passing over me as my usual invisible self.

With her sharp-nailed finger, she decides on David, our class clown, to answer the question.

"My stomach," he replies, leaning back in his seat with a contented grin on his face. "Especially my mom's. She makes the best chili."

I sigh at the classic comment by the blond, messy-haired boy. I don't join in the surrounding laughter, but instead turn to face the teacher, who, per usual, is incredibly calm.

"If your stomach houses Santiago de Chile, then yes, you are correct," Miss Crystal says, giving the class a small smile. "But I'm going to assume it doesn't." With that, she turns from the class and walks over to her desk, picking up a stack of papers. "Thank Mr. Abbott for our following pop quiz. Miss Abner, can you pass out the papers?" she asks Madison, a perfect blonde with blue eyes set on her pale, smooth skin and jewelry adorning her wrists. She's one of those 'pretty on the outside, but something completely different on the inside' girls—vain and incredibly rich.

She flips her shiny hair and I watch it glow as though bathed in sunlight as she rises from her seat in the 'loud zone' towards the back left of the class and replies, "Of course, Miss Crystal." She strides to the front of the class with her head held high and smiles as she accepts the papers from Miss Crystal. It immediately falls when she turns back to the class.

"One for the class nerd," she murmurs, not loud enough for the teacher to hear as she sets a paper down at the first table. "One for the second nerd." She smiles down at the students in the 'question zone' in the front middle of the room. From there she moves to the 'escape zone', the students closest to the door, grinning as she calls them the 'escapees'. "There's no escaping this test," she says as she passes them to go over to the teacher zone, which houses students whose goal is to be the teacher's pet and distract her from class.

After passing the 'loud zone', her own area, without any more words, she heads to the slackers, skipping over the 'quiet zone', where I reside.

Gold digger.

Bigmouth.

Tattletale.

Waste of space.

Skunk.

Fishskin.

Flippers.

Pinhead.

The name-calling swirls in my head as I hear her shoes heading in the direction of the final zone.

The quiet zone.

Then to the final seat.

Mine.

Everything turns to slow-motion as she lets the pop quiz fall through the air to my desk. Resting her hand on top of the paper, she gets right close to my face with an evil, yellow-toothed grin. "Failure," she breathes out, allowing the simple word to sink in.

Ｍｅｍｏｒｉｅｓ

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.

Ｍｅｍｏｒｉｅｓ

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

I know the reason for her choice of name. It was something between us; something only we knew.

Like an inside joke, but most definitely not funny.

Well, not to me at least.

She smirks, turning away from me and walking back to her seat with the final quiz gripped between her slim fingers.

Failure.

That's what I am.

A failure.