I lurked in the small table in the corner of the lunchroom, lodged between a wall with a poster highlighting the cafeteria rules and a black bin overflowing with empty milk cartons and empty cardboard plates. The table was sticky and cold under my cold hands, yet I could feel my hands clammy. My heart felt like it was trying to escape within its walls, and all I wanted so much was to escape. My vision was blurred by this slight sense of hope, that maybe things could change.

The four brick walled room was filled with boisterous laughter that pierced my ears. An orange was flung just to the right of my head and plopped into the trash. Crowds of people shoved and pushed beside my table, almost knocking my headphones out of place.

I sucked in a breath of the humid, dense air of the room, my gaze focused directly on the table exactly four tables down, the only table not occupied yet. It was predictable— she was always the last with all her friends, giggling and shoving as they made their way to the table. Her thick golden blonde hair cascaded down her round face beneath her shoulders, one side tucked behind her ear, and some strands would get stuck under the tote bag on her left shoulder. I remember the slight slant of her smirk, and her scratchy, hoarse laugh. Her face would turn plush pink as her lips lifted up. Every day as she sat, she would pull out a peach scented hand sanitizer, spraying two sprays on her hands and offering it around the table.

My thoughts are interrupted as a warm glob lands on the top of my black hair, and streams down the strands reaching down to my neck, plastering against my skin. I lift my hands to my hair, and chunks of pasta and cheese cover my hands.

When I look up, our eyes meet. I don’t know what I expected. Did I expect an apology, or some form of remorse? Did I expect some scorn, as if I deserved it? Did I expect sympathy? I didn’t know what to feel. All I got back was an empty stare, empty like the cartons of milk beside me, empty like every one in this room. I stared at her, as if my gaze would pierce straight into her heart, as if it would speak to her somehow.

She escapes my gaze. Like any other day, she continues to laugh and giggle with her friends. She tucks her long blonde hair behind her ears and shifts her pink mini skirt under her as she takes a seat at the table. She grabs her peach watermelon spray hand sanitizer from her pink backpack. She sprays it on her hands, and freezes. This day, she doesn’t offer it to anyone else. Instead of the clear chemical, all that streams out from the bottle is red. It is a thick, bold red, and it slowly streams across her hands, to her arms. Her face is a thick red just like it, and her gaze meets my eyes one more time— not empty now, but pleading and begging, begging for an answer in these brown voids.

But now, my whole substance is empty. I am not in that cafeteria room. The disgusting mac and cheese is no longer globbed within my hair. I am somewhere else, I don’t know where. Maybe I am walking in an infinite field, overflowing with endless grass and lavender flowers, the wonderful scent filling my nostrils for eternity. Maybe I am in the clouds, crying with them as my tears flood the earth. Maybe they will see me then, and finally understand. Maybe I am within the stars, not the sun, but maybe one of its daughters, floating in the endless void. Maybe someone would notice then, after all the lights dim out in New York City. They could look up, and find that flashing, pleading, begging light. Maybe then they’d notice me.

But maybe despite all of this, my story ends in a void, my story never heard. Maybe I will be floating in an endless, dark space for as long as I’m aware. No one will see me, and I won’t see them. I’ll just be floating, unaware, but maybe free. It’s just that no one would notice me.