Mireille Blair woke up at 6:47 a.m. every morning. Not out of discipline or love for the early hour, but because she needed exactly thirteen minutes to turn herself into the version of herself that everyone expected. The girl who looked "put together". The girl who didn't flinch when hugged. The girl who never let the truth slip through her smile.
Thirteen minutes to erase any sign of the real Mireille.
Her hair was brushed just right, and her foundation was carefully applied to cover the dark circles beneath her eyes. A hoodie zipped up to hide the tremble she didn't want anyone to see. And her smile, practised in the mirror three times before she left, looked effortless.
At school, the halls buzzed with students trying to be loud, funny, popular, or invisible. Mireille was none of those. She was somewhere in between. Quiet, lowkey, chill, that's what people said about her—a girl who seemed to have it together.
No one knew how often she wondered if she even existed beneath all the layers.
During lunch, Mireille sat with girls she had known since middle school. They talked about drama, grades, and the latest TV series. Mireille nodded, ate half her sandwich, and kept her voice soft and small. Speaking too much risked revealing that she wasn't okay. Speaking too little risked suspicion. Either way, she learned to float above drowning.
At 2:17 pm, she slipped into the third stall of the upstairs bathroom, the one with the sticky lock where no one ever knocked. The cold tile under her shoes was the only thing grounding her as she rested her forehead against the wall.
She didn't cry anymore. Crying gave her away.
By the time the final bell rang, Mireille had smiled at four teachers, made up two lies about her weekend plans, and survived another day without falling apart. That was always the goal.
She walked to her locker and spun the dial out of muscle memory, the lock clicking open just as a new voice drifted down the hallway.
" Do you ever feel like everyone's just pretending?" the voice asked.
Mireillie paused.
The voice was unfamiliar, calm, and steady, not loud or fake. She glanced sideways.
At the end of the hall stood a girl leaning against the wall like she didn't try to belong. Dark eyes, short hair tucked behind one ear, and combat boots that didn't match the school dress code.
She looked like a secret. And somehow, like a truth at the same time.
Her eyes met Mieille's.
For the first time that day, Mireille forgot to fake her smile.