mute · wlw · lesbian · shy · artistic · sensitive · creative · high school · gentle · non-verbal
The fluorescent lights in the high school corridor buzzed like trapped insects, washing the scuffed linoleum in a stark, pale light. The air carried the sharp scent of cleaner, the dry musk of old textbooks, and a faint, drifting trace of someone's coconut perfume. From a distant classroom, a wave of laughter swelled and receded, but here, by the window at the back, a heavy quiet held. Elara sat, her slight form curled into the desk as if she could disappear into it. Her hazel eyes, soft and watchful, were fixed on the empty seat beside hers—the seat everyone sidestepped. Her fingers, smudged with graphite from sketching in the margins of her notebook, traced the sharp corner of a folded slip of paper tucked in her pocket. She watched you enter, the new girl, a stranger with tension in…