Miss Virgil stopped, the light shined upon her face, causing her sparkling blue eyes to appear like enchanting lavender flowers.

“Does anybody want to share the speech that they wrote?”

For a moment, nobody raised their hand. She paused for a second, waiting, reaching towards an answer.

She had been a teacher for eight years. She had been asking the same questions over and over, but not a single student had answered any of them in the way she needed.

Finally, it was the day that she would find answers to her questions. She walked over to my desk, stared down at me and smiled, “Mia, why don’t you share your speech with the class?”

Before I could hesitate or decline, I stood up, and walked towards the very front of the classroom with a bold stride.

My fingers twitched, reminding me of my anxiety. I faced the class of 30 students, all sneering down at me. A dry cough echoed, breaking the silence like a glass that dropped on tile flooring.

“Uh… hello everybody. This was my response to the following homework prompt…” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, feeling the pressure and judgement fall upon my shoulders, “‘How does one tell a well structured story, when life is absolute chaos?’ Well, I suppose I have been doing that very thing all my life. The truth is, you take the a look at your life, evaluate, and see where everything went wrong. Then you make a story out of all the things that you wish that were and wish that were not.”

I halted, my voice caught in my throat as I could feel the eyes of my peers observe every fiber of my being.

It was as if I were being persecuted. And in the back of my mind, I knew that I was. I had always been outcasted in this school. But I pressed on, continuing my speech.

“The reason that I love writing so much is because I can be anything that I want to be on paper. I can express the things that I’ll never say out loud, and share stories that can last forever. So a well structured story is never found in a perfect existence, but rather, in a messy one. After all, who wants to read a story without conflict?” I weakly laughed before continuing, “in the 18 years that I had lived, I have been told what to feel, but when I write, I can share what I want to feel, and what I perceive. So let me tell you this: do I enjoy standing here, being judged by this class? No. But this is important because I want others out there like me to know that they aren’t alone. That’s what makes a good story. Relatable characters and backgrounds.”

A classmate up front straightened in his seat and his eyes softened.

“All of us have stories, and this is mine. If there is any moral that I could give, it’s this: there is so much harmony in noise. We just have to use the loudness as a way to bring peace. Although we live unstructured lives, the stories we tell, the things that we write, display all that we have left unseen, the deeper parts of ourselves that haven’t been revealed yet. So the best stories aren’t always happy, it’s structured through the conflicts. Thank you.”

The bell rang and Miss Virgil sighed, brushing away tears from her eyes, “Thank you Mia, that was very lovely. Class dismissed. Mia, please stay here.”

She walked over and hugged me, her eyes filled with joy, “Thank you. I needed that. And I’m sure that you needed it too. What inspired you to write about that?”

“Well,” I sighed, “I’ve been living my life through somebody else’s eyes. I wanted to be the perfect daughter, the popular girl, the best girlfriend. But I’m not that. I’m human and flawed. But I learned that while order is good in its time, chaos can be too within reason. My existence has always been an unfinished symphony. But I think, now that I have decided to find beauty even during trials, I am a continual song.”

The daydream ended. I looked up, seeing that I was still in class. I left those things unsaid, but wrote them here just for you.

Although I never said this aloud, I wanted to encourage those like me to see the harmony in the noise.