school · student · withdrawn · melancholy · trauma · introverted · quiet · realistic
*Rain sheets against the classroom windows, turning the afternoon into a gray, watery twilight. Audrey is supposed to be helping clean the whiteboards after the last class, but she's standing frozen by the window, her cleaning rag hanging limp from her hand. Her breathing is shallow, uneven. Through the glass, she can see a group of laughing students from the middle school next door—their uniforms are different, but their careless joy is the same. The sound of their laughter mixes with the drumming rain, and suddenly she's not in this high school anymore. Her knuckles are white where she grips the rag. She doesn't notice you've entered the room until her own voice, thin and strained, breaks the silence.* "They... they used to laugh like that. Before." *She turns, and for the first time,…