The child didn’t look up. Her eyes remained fixed on the scuffed linoleum floor. “No, thank you, Miss Thompson. I just… I prefer standing.”
Her voice was barely a whisper, brittle as dried leaves. But it was her posture that made my stomach turn. She wasn’t just standing; she was hovering, shifting her weight from foot to foot with a minute, agonizing rhythm. It wasn’t defiance. It was endurance.
“Did something happen to your chair?” I asked, keeping my tone light, feigning ignorance.
“No, ma’am.” The response was practiced. Automatic.
I let it go for the moment, but the unease settled in my marrow. Throughout the day, I watched her. I watched how she leaned against the cool cinderblock walls during art, how she flinched when the bell rang, how she refused to sit even during lunch, claiming she wasn’t hungry. She was a ghost haunting her own life.
That afternoon, after the buses had rumbled away and the silence of the empty school settled around me, I heard a rustle from the reading corner.
Lily was there, crouched behind a bookshelf, clutching her backpack like a shield.
“Lily?” I knelt, keeping my distance. “Everyone has gone home, dear.”
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