CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER 1

NOTE TO READERS: THIS BOOK CONTAIN OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE AND BULLYING WHICH MAY SEEM OFFENSIVE TO READERS. #SayNoToBullying - IT ALSO CONTAINS S*X SCENES

***CLASSROOM***

"Did you see the way she flinched when Caleb got in her face?" Maddie's words dripped with wicked enjoyment as she took her normal place in the back of the English classroom.

Trent snickered and slumped down alongside her. "Like a scared little rabbit." "You'd think the mute freak would be accustomed to it by now."

Their laughter sliced through the dull roar of student talk, with an edge sharp enough to pierce even the toughest exteriors. Not that their intended target could answer with anything other than a pained expression.

Lila kept her gaze fixed on the blank notebook before her, her hands clutched tightly in her lap to conceal a tiny trembling. She strained to block out the vicious remarks, to build the invisible walls that were her sole defense against the barrage of heartless words.

"Seriously, how does she expect to make it through high school?" Maddie continued, loud enough that Lila couldn't miss the hatred in her tone. "She can't even talk back to defend her freakish self."

A heavy quiet descended over the cluster of desks that surrounded Lila as the other students drew back, instinctively withdrawing themselves from the line of fire. No one dared to intervene in the face of Caleb Matthews' exclusive inner circle's vengeful anger.

Caleb swaggered into the room, as if called by their stinging remarks, claiming immediate attention and respect. With his crafted looks and easy, contagious charm, the top basketball star could have graced any magazine's cover.

Trent immediately perked up, his eyes gleaming with an arrogant need for acceptance. "Did you see how we got the mute girl all worked up before class, man? "She looked like she was going to cry."

Caleb's lips twisted into a slow, predatory grin as his gaze fixed on Lila. Even though she didn't look up, she could feel the weight of his gaze burning into her like a white-hot brand.

"Aw, you didn't make the poor thing weep, did you?" His tone was tinged with fake pity, and each patronizing phrase was like a precisely aimed bullet. "We need to be more considerate of her...limitations."

Laughter spread like a virus throughout the audience as they basked in Caleb's warped charisma. He thrived on creating a captive biosphere of cruelty, with the subtle brushstrokes of a genuine master.

Lila sank into her seat and desperately blinked back the embarrassing prick of tears. Don't show weakness, don't give them satisfaction, she told herself. However, it was like attempting to block a surging flood with her bare hands.

"Well, if it isn't little Ms. Mute," Caleb said, sauntering over to the tower above Lila's huddled body like a sleek leopard toying with its victim.

Unable to leave, she braved a quick glimpse up at her tormentor and was immediately entrapped by the swirling depths of disdain in his chillingly soulless eyes.

"Cat got your tongue, freak?" Caleb taunted with a serpentine hiss. "Or are you just too scared to admit the truth - that you're a worthless, defective waste of—"

The hard crash of a book against the desktop mercifully broke him off as Mrs. Wilkin entered with her signature disapproving look.

"That's enough from you, Mr. Matthews," she reprimanded sharply. "Perhaps you'd like to share your insights on how To Kill A Mockingbird's exploration of societal injustice with the rest of the class?"

Lila silently let out the air she'd been holding as Caleb strolled to the front of the room, unleashing his disruptive charm on their unsuspecting teacher. She received a little respite from his malicious agony.

But the shadows of his hateful words persisted, gradually smothering her beneath their deadly weight. On the whiteboard before her, a chilling observation appeared to ignite with piercing truth:

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

The piercing bell rang, jolting Lila back into the hard reality of the empty classroom. Dried tear streaks streaked her cheeks as she gently gathered her books, Caleb's parting remarks still stifling the air around her.

Normally, the reassuring presence of her best friend Mia would have been enough to ward off the harshest blows. But Mia was out sick that day, leaving Lila to face the pain alone, without her beloved defender.

She stood motionless for a long time, watching as the final few students hurried out. No one gave her a second glance; the mute girl, the target, was just another daily fixture to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

Lila stroked her fingers over the mocking phrases Caleb had scratched into her desk, carving his cruelty into a lasting stain on her life, just as the scars he inflicted were invisible to others.

"Worthless freak."

The slur appeared to resound through her spirit with terrible finality. How much more of this could she bear? When will the never-ending barrage of anguish from her peers, from the entire cruel world, ultimately crush what is left of her spirit?

Steeling herself, Lila pushed one foot in front of the other towards the door, her shoulders bowed under the weight of her silence. She refused to exhibit weakness or crumple under Caleb's tyrannical attempts to silence her voice, her very existence.

But, as she went woodenly through the halls, each spiteful gaze and whispered jeer slashed like ritualistic slashes at her fragile defenses. By the time she reached the art room's closed door, her entire body was numb and rigid.

Lila stumbled to the antique horsehair sofa, its shapes softened by years of cradling broken students in search of relief. Crumpling into the falling cushions, she eventually let her emotions pour in huge, wrenching gasps.

Why? Why was she labelled an outcast, a disgrace, simply for being unable to speak? Lila never asked for the disability that made her useless in the eyes of her tormentors.

As her agonizing screams erupted in ragged gasps, she banged her hands against the ruined sketchbook that had been her lone companion. Its worn pages were muddled with the evidence of her never-ending struggle to be seen and her unheard thoughts finally heard.

By the time the racking sobs stopped, Lila could only slump in hollow separation, her eyes dry and unfocused. What was the purpose of battling anymore? Caleb and his merciless group of hyenas had already triumphed, destroying her with their cruelty.

She was nothing. A broken, flawed waste, as he never failed to remind her. Alone, without even Mia's unwavering support, her sole company the deafening silence that condemned her to invisibility.

Perhaps it was now time to give up, to accept her destiny as a societal vanishing. At the very least, perhaps the pain would stop, and the scars would heal over her grievously injured psyche.

Lila's gaze swept across the canvas she had begun, the distorted charcoal strokes merging into unrecognizable anguish. A hollow, twisted representation of her existence.

Gathering the torn bits of her sketchbook, she gradually proceeded to take the pages out one by one, reducing her desires and visions to scattered ashes of oblivion. Soon, the once-vibrant space lay cocooned in a blanket of smothering silence, a little purgatory where she could simply cease to exist.

The door suddenly burst open, shattering Lila's dismal bubble. She flinched involuntarily at the disruption, bracing herself for a verbal barrage of darts and spiteful hatred...