Camille Laurent stood at the iron gates of Lycée Louis-le-Grand, one of France's most celebrated schools, where history breathed through stone walls and ambition echoed in every corridor. Students passed her in hurried waves—laughter, voices, footsteps—but Camille felt strangely still, as if the world was moving around her and not with her.
She began to walk.
The cobblestone path felt familiar beneath her feet, yet today it carried a weight she couldn't name. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag, not because it was heavy, but because her thoughts were.
Why does everything look the same when I feel so different?
Camille wondered.
The school had taught her equations, literature, and logic—but it had never taught her how to carry a truth that lived quietly inside her chest. A truth that didn't scream, didn't bleed, didn't show itself on her face—yet followed her everywhere like a shadow.
She watched her reflection in the glass windows as she passed. Calm eyes. Composed posture. A girl who looked untouched by storms.
If only they knew how loud silence can be, she thought.
Camille smiled faintly at a group of classmates, responding to the world the way it expected her to. No one noticed the pause in her steps, the hesitation in her breath. No one could hear the whispers inside her—the ones she wasn't ready to answer yet.
Not here.
Not now.
Some secrets, she believed, weren't meant to be spoken aloud.
They were meant to be carried—until the heart was strong enough to let them go.
And so Camille Laurent walked on, through the halls of excellence, carrying a truth the world was not yet allowed to know.
Camille Laurent stepped into the classroom quietly, the wooden door creaking just enough to announce her presence. For a moment, she stood near the door, unsure whether to move forward or disappear into the space between seconds. The room was already alive—chairs scraping softly, pages turning, whispered conversations floating like dust in sunlight.
Every head turned.
Eyes paused on her—not with curiosity, not with kindness, just with that brief human habit of noticing something that doesn't belong to the noise. Camille felt their gazes brush against her skin, light yet heavy, like unanswered questions. Then, one by one, they looked away. Pens resumed their movement. Bags were opened. Lives went on.
As if she had never stood there at all.
She walked slowly toward her seat.
The benches in front of her were empty.
The benches behind her were empty.
The seats beside her—left and right—were empty too.
A quiet island in a room full of people.
Camille sat down gently, as though afraid the chair might feel her weight differently than it should. She placed her bag beneath the desk, folded her hands once, then unfolded them again. The silence around her was louder than any crowd.
Strange, she thought.
How emptiness can feel chosen… not accidental.
She rested her elbow on the desk and leaned her cheek into her palm, letting her fingers support a face that smiled for the world but trembled inside. Her gaze drifted toward the window, beyond the walls of Lycée Louis-le-Grand, beyond the expectations, beyond the pretending.
Outside, the sky was pale—neither happy nor sad. Just existing.
A crow landed on the window ledge.
Its black feathers shimmered softly, sharp against the light. It tilted its head, as if observing her, as if it knew something no one else did. Camille watched it closely, her breath slowing, her thoughts loosening their grip.
Why a crow? she wondered.
Why not something gentle… something free?
The crow didn't move. It stayed.
And suddenly, memories pressed against her chest—not loud, not violent, but steady and relentless. Doctor's voices without faces. Words spoken carefully, as if softness could lessen their meaning. A future rewritten in sentences she had never asked to read.
Her fingers curled slightly.
I didn't choose this, she thought.
So why does it feel like I'm being punished?
The classroom faded into a blur. The ticking clock became distant. The whispers of other students dissolved. It was just her, the window, and the truth she had buried so deep that even she pretended it didn't exist.
Her eyes burned.
Camille closed them.
In that small, fragile darkness, she finally let the question escape—not loud enough for the world, not strong enough to be heard, but heavy enough to break her.
"Why… why," she whispered to herself, her voice barely touching the air,
"why do I have HIV?"
The words trembled as they left her lips, as if they too were afraid of existing.
No one heard her.
And yet, saying it—even in silence—felt like a crack in her carefully built calm. Tears gathered behind her closed eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She refused. Not here. Not in this room full of unaware hearts.
The crow flew away.
Camille opened her eyes.
She straightened her posture, wiped nothing because nothing had fallen, and became the girl the world expected again. The girl with empty benches around her. The girl with quiet strength. The girl with a secret heavy enough to bend time.
She looked back at the board, at the lesson she would pretend to follow, carrying a truth that sat beside her—unseen, unnamed, and unbearably real.
The classroom hummed with the soft rhythm of pens scratching paper and occasional whispers. Camille Laurent sat quietly in her isolated corner, her elbow resting on the desk, her cheek supported by her hand. Outside, the world went on, oblivious to the storm of thoughts she carried silently.
Suddenly, Camille noticed a pencil fall near her bench. A girl, probably a year younger, scrambled to pick it up. Camille's eyes followed her movements out of curiosity, her lips twitching slightly at the clumsiness—but she didn't intend to intervene. After all, she wasn't here to make friends today.
"Don't go there!" a voice hissed sharply. Camille glanced to see the girl's friend tugging her sleeve, eyes wide, whispering urgently. "Quick! Come here! Don't… don't go near Camille!"
The pencil girl hesitated, her gaze flickering between Camille and her friend, uncertain. Camille watched silently. Then, a soft, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips.
Funny, she thought, they think I'm scary. Me? Scary?
She leaned slightly on her desk and murmured to herself in that quiet, private way she often did:
"Scary… right… because sitting quietly makes me dangerous. I should charge tuition for this, maybe?"
Her whisper barely reached her own ears, yet somehow it made the emptiness around her feel less heavy. A small, private chuckle escaped, hidden behind the calm facade. The girl froze, the pencil still untouched, unsure what to do. Camille pretended to be absorbed in her notebook, but her smile lingered, a tiny rebellion against the idea that she had to be frightening.
Why does everyone assume I'm untouchable? she thought softly. Is it my silence? My space? Or… just my luck?
The pencil girl finally snatched up her fallen pencil and scuttled away, leaving Camille alone again, the corners of her lips still curving faintly. Camille leaned back in her chair, gazing out the window, speaking quietly to herself as though sharing a secret only she could hear:
"Funny world… thinks I'm scary, and yet… I just want to be left alone to think."
Her voice was soft, almost playful, but the loneliness in it lingered like a shadow. Camille returned to staring outside, the empty benches around her acting as both shield and prison, and the classroom continued its gentle chaos—completely unaware of the small, silent smile she carried within.