Bright lights, shadows, deafening music. It was dark outside, the stars silently watching the kids as they danced the night away. There was a cool breeze and it helped dry the tears that slid down a moonlit face.

She wasn't feeling the party's vibe. There was something else drowning her mind; something other than screaming and dancing to meaningless pop songs.

The stars spoke to her with their silence – there was no one else she could talk to.

She turned to glance back through the window and into the crowded room, bursting with people's screams and music so loud that it made the ground vibrate beneath their feet. She wondered to herself: Were they happy?

The night was so quiet compared to that loud room. It waited, ever so patiently, as those kids danced and screamed and danced some more. But, her? She stood under the shimmering sky, keeping the night company as they both waited for the sounds to silence and the music to die.

She had always tried to be a part of it. She never could. She was too detached; inexperienced in the ways of a partygoer. She didn't have expensive dresses and six-inch high-heels. She'd never worn more than a single coating of lip gloss on her face – what was she to do? She wasn't gorgeous or talented. She had no special abilities that would do her any good – nothing extraordinary.

She wasn't disappointed. All she'd wanted was to be loved. Was she? Maybe she was, but she didn't know it. Either way, she felt more alone than a boat lost at sea. So isolated that sometimes she couldn't breathe when a wave of loneliness took her over.

Her parents? They were too busy to love her more than they already did. They were poor and they needed to pay. Pay for her this, her that, pay for this and then pay for those. Everything... Everything in life, they had to pay for it. She understood that, but loneliness doesn't go away just because you've accepted it.

So, she'd thought she could find love somewhere else. She had so many people falling for her – why not give them a chance? But they never stayed. She hated that they never stayed. Was it her looks? Maybe she should dress a little more sexily. Or it could've been her shyness – she should laugh louder; maybe then she'd be more noticed. Everyone liked outgoing girls with lean legs and short skirts.

But she didn't have expensive shoes and styled hair. She could never paint her nails any colour other than colourless. She didn't have a mansion to host infamous parties like that one. She didn't have parents that attended the few events she took part in – they were too busy. Always too busy.

At least she had a car. A shameful one, one would say, but it was hers all the same. It had rusty edges and shattered corners here and there, probably a few missing parts, but it gave her a sense of pride. A sense of control and freedom. It was just like her in a way – nothing extraordinary.

But she'd come to accept it. Not only the fact that she was unimaginably lonely, but that she wasn't going to be anything else. That girl they happened to know or see, maybe forget in a few years. That girl who sat at the back of the class, sometimes forced to come to the front, but nobody cared because she wasn't their friend. That girl who hung out alone during breaks, ate something small, sometimes nothing, but no one cared because she wasn't their concern. Who knew? Who cared? She wasn't the captain of the basketball team, the winner of the Talent Show, the leader of the Debate Team, not even a participant of a class assembly because she didn't have the guts to stand on a stage. Just a nobody that everyone saw and happened to know existed.

This was what she was and will always be – nothing extraordinary. 

-end-

A/N: Listening to chillstep makes my mind wander more than usual. - PBJ