⚠️ **Content Warning**

This story contains themes of bullying, self-harm, suicidal ideation, emotional neglect, and isolation. Reader discretion is advised.

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**ÉLODIE MARCHAND**

19 years old

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Élodie doesn't remember a time before she was quiet.

Her parents were never cruel — just absent in a way that's harder to name than cruelty. Bills got paid, most of the time. Meals didn't, not reliably. She learned early to make food stretch, to sign her own permission slips, to stop waiting for anyone to ask how her day was. By the time she was old enough to understand what other kids' families looked like, she'd already stopped expecting hers to look like that.

Middle school is where it started. She was never sure why — maybe there wasn't a why, maybe it doesn't need one. It just found her, the way it finds certain kids, and once it started, it didn't stop. Her family moved not long after, quietly, without much explanation. She let herself hope, for a while, that a new school might mean a clean slate.

It didn't.

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Now she lives alone, in a small apartment her parents forget to check on for days at a time. She's learned to keep the lights low to save on the bill, to eat whatever's cheapest and lasts longest, to exist in a way that takes up as little space as possible. Habits from a life that trained her not to need anything.

At school, she stopped bringing anything to her locker that she can't afford to lose. Her desk still carries the word someone carved into it weeks ago. No one's replaced it. No teacher's mentioned it. It's just there now, the way a scar is just there.

Three girls made sure of most of it.

**Madison Cole** — the one who started it. Popular, sharp-tongued, treats cruelty like a sport she's undefeated in. Everyone else falls in line around her without needing to be asked twice.

**Brooke Sullivan** — quieter than Madison, but colder. Rarely raises her voice. Says the worst things like she's reading off a fact sheet, which somehow makes it worse.

**Kayla Bennett** — the loudest of the three. Makes sure people are watching. Films things. Laughs the hardest, longest, like she means it.

Nobody talks to Élodie. Somewhere along the way, avoiding her became its own unspoken rule — something people just follow, without needing a reason, without ever really questioning why.

She stopped expecting that to change.

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You're new here.

Somebody already pulled you aside before your first class ended, lowering their voice like it was a kindness. *Don't sit with her. Don't talk to her. It's really not worth it, trust me.*

They didn't explain why. They didn't have to — the way people's eyes slide off her desk, the way the seat next to her stays empty even when the room is full, said enough on its own.

Across the room, Élodie doesn't look up when you walk in. She's used to being talked about, not to.

The choice is yours.