Zaniah didn’t know you could feel your heart break at eight years old.

She thought heartbreak was something that only happened to adults. People who said things like “I need space,” and “We’ve grown apart,” and slammed doors behind them. But as she stood on the cracked cement porch of a house that didn’t smell like home, holding a backpack that wasn’t even zipped all the way, she realized she was wrong.

Her mother didn’t cry when she drove away.

Didn’t even look back.

"Be good," she'd said, her voice clipped and rushed.

As if being good was enough to make Zaniah invisible.

As if being good would stop the ache curling in her chest.

The screen door creaked open, and she was there.

Keisha.

Red nails. Tight tank top. The kind of smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Well, look who finally showed up,” she said, tugging her robe closed like Zaniah was the one intruding.

Zaniah blinked at her. Behind her, the house was dim. She could hear the sound of sports on a TV and the clinking of a spoon in a coffee mug. Her father didn’t come to the door.

He never came to the door.

Keisha moved aside, like she was doing Zaniah a favor by letting her in. The girl hesitated. Part of her still thought her mom might change her mind, pull back into the driveway and say, “Just kidding. Let’s go home.”

But the beat-up Honda kept driving down the street, disappearing like she was never coming back.

Zaniah stepped in.

The air smelled like burnt bacon and weed. The carpet was stained near the corners. Someone had knocked over a plant and never cleaned it up. This wasn’t home. Not even close.

“You can put your stuff over there,” Keisha said, waving toward a spot near the couch. She was already back on her phone, typing with long fingers like none of this was her problem.

Zaniah walked past her in silence. Her father glanced at her over his shoulder from the kitchen, eyes bloodshot and tired.

He didn’t say her name.

Didn’t even smile.

Just turned back to whatever he was doing, as if she were some delivery left at the door.

Zaniah sat on the edge of the too-soft couch that smelled like cheap cologne and betrayal. Her hands were clenched in her lap, her backpack still clinging to her shoulders like it didn’t want to let go either.

In that moment, something inside her settled.

Not in a good way.

Not in a soft way.

It was the kind of settling that happens when something breaks and doesn’t get fixed. When you stop waiting for someone to come save you.

She was eight.

And already, Zaniah was learning how to disappear.

Zaniah didn’t even get five minutes of silence before the first cut came.

“She got your ears, you know,” Keisha said from the kitchen, not even trying to whisper. “Big ol’ Dumbo ears. Poor thing.”

Laughter.

Her father’s.

Zaniah stiffened. She didn’t even turn around. Her ears burned, and suddenly she was aware of every part of herself she couldn’t hide. Her ears. Her too-thin arms. Her dry lips. Her voice that always sounded too small.

Keisha kept going. “Bet the kids at school eat her up, huh? Talkin’ like she’s grown but lookin’ like a scared little rabbit.”

Her dad didn’t stop her. Didn’t say, “That’s enough.”

He just kept stirring whatever was in the pot.

Something inside Zaniah snapped. Quietly. Like glass cracking beneath your feet.

She didn’t say a word. She stood up, gripped the straps of her backpack, and walked out the front door.

No one stopped her.

No one even noticed.

Outside, the sky had turned the color of bruises. Thunder rumbled somewhere far off. She sat down on the porch steps at first, but the storm didn’t care about her mood—it started pouring like the sky itself was done holding back.

She didn’t move.

She let it soak her hoodie, her socks, her skin. Let it crawl down her back and stick her curls to her forehead. She was too cold to shiver. Too tired to cry.

That’s when she saw him.

A boy about her age, maybe a little older. Ten, maybe eleven. Skinny, with long legs and sharp cheekbones. He wasn’t running from the rain—he was walking right through it like it didn’t matter.

He stopped when he saw her. Just... looked at her.

"You okay?" he asked.

His voice was soft but confident. Like someone used to being ignored but still choosing to care.

Zaniah didn’t answer.

He didn’t press her. He sat down a few steps away, quiet, both of them getting drenched like forgotten laundry.

“I don’t like the rain,” she finally said, voice barely above the storm.

“I do,” he replied, grinning just a little. “Can’t nobody see you cry in the rain.”

She turned her head toward him slowly. Her eyes stung.

“Not crying.”

He didn’t argue.

They sat there for what felt like forever, watching puddles form in the gravel driveway, watching leaves tremble under the downpour.

Then he stood up. “I gotta go.”

She blinked. “Wait—what’s your name?”

The boy smiled, just once. “You don’t need to know it. You’ll forget anyway.”

And just like that, he ran off, vanishing into the curtain of gray.

She never saw him again.

That night, she didn’t eat dinner. She lay in the crusted twin bed in the spare room, water still dripping from her braids. Her backpack was her pillow. Her wet socks stayed on.

But she thought about him. The boy in the rain.

And that smile that made her feel—just for a second—like maybe she wasn’t completely invisible.

By the time Zaniah was twelve, she had learned how to survive on silence.

She didn’t speak unless she had to.

Didn’t laugh too loudly.

Didn’t cry, ever.

She wore her hair in a tight puff now. Didn’t bother with lip gloss or earrings. Most girls at George Middle School wore big hoop earrings and glitter lip smackers, but Zaniah kept herself small and plain. On purpose.

People didn’t mess with what they couldn’t see.

Then Stella came.

She showed up in the middle of October, when the wind was cold enough to bite through your jacket. She wore a blazer. A real blazer. And boots that looked like they cost more than most people’s rent. Her braids were long, dipped in gold beads, and she smelled like fancy lotion and bookstores.

All the girls whispered about her.

All the boys stared.

But Stella sat next to Zaniah in math class. And when Mr. Collins passed out worksheets, she leaned over and said, “You’ve got really neat handwriting. Like, scarily neat.”

Zaniah blinked at her. “Thanks?”

“I’m Stella.”

“I know.”

“Okay,” she smiled. “Then what’s your name?”

“…Zaniah.”

And just like that, something shifted.

Stella didn’t care that Zaniah wasn’t cool. She invited her to her house after school — a two-story townhouse with a fireplace and almond milk in the fridge. She had a velvet reading nook. A velvet nook, like something out of a catalog.

Zaniah was awkward at first. She didn't know what to do with all the softness. But Stella didn’t mind.

“Girl, chill,” she laughed once. “You’re acting like I’m about to charge you rent.”

They did everything together — watched corny vampire movies, made slime, FaceTimed past bedtime. For the first time in years, Zaniah had someone who saw her. Really saw her.

And for a while, it was good.

Until James came along.

James, with the curls and dimples and confidence like he didn’t even know what rejection meant. He ruled the hallways without trying. Girls changed their hairstyles after he complimented them once. Boys tried to dress like him and failed.

Stella started looking at James.

Then talking about James. Then laughing too loud when he was around. Then whispering to Zaniah in class, “Do you think he’d ever go for someone like me?”

And Zaniah… she smiled through it.

Nodded.

Said the right best friend things.

But inside, a chill she thought she’d buried a long time ago started to come back. A feeling she couldn’t name yet, but it felt like being pushed to the edge of something… again.

She noticed the small things first.

Stella stopped replying to texts as fast.

Stopped asking Zaniah to come over after school.

Started sitting a little closer to James in the cafeteria. Laughing a little harder. Noticing when he looked Zaniah’s way — and then going quiet.

And Zaniah?

She pretended not to notice. Pretended everything was fine.

But something was cracking.

Just like it had before.

It didn’t happen all at once.

That was the worst part.

It wasn’t like Stella stopped being her friend. She still waved at Zaniah in the halls. Still sent the occasional TikTok link with a dozen laughing emojis. Still called her “Z” like only she was allowed to.

But the space between them started filling with… other things.

Other people.

Other conversations.

Other moments Zaniah wasn’t part of.

She’d see it from across the lunchroom sometimes—Stella laughing with a group of girls Zaniah didn’t know well. The “popular-adjacent” crowd. The ones with edges always laid, and backpacks with perfume samples in the pockets. Stella used to make fun of those girls.

Now she was sitting with them. Leaning into their circles like she belonged there.

Like Zaniah didn’t.

When Stella did sit with her, she was distracted. Her eyes would flick toward James as he walked past their table, and she’d nudge Zaniah with a grin. “Did you see that? He looked at me. Like looked-looked.”

Zaniah would nod. Smile. Say, “You’re probably right.”

But her hands would shake a little under the table.

Because it wasn’t just James.

It was everything else Stella seemed to be reaching for now — attention, status, something shinier. Something louder. Something Zaniah had never been, never tried to be.

One day in art class, Stella came in wearing lip gloss. It shimmered. It made her lips look expensive.

“You think James’ll notice?” she whispered.

Zaniah looked at her, eyes stinging.

“He’ll notice,” she said flatly.

She didn’t say: But will you even notice me anymore?

Later that week, Stella skipped their after-school FaceTime to hang out at the mall with Sasha and Taryn. She didn’t even tell Zaniah herself — just posted a story of them laughing at the food court, sipping frozen lemonades.

Zaniah watched it in the dark of her room, blanket wrapped tight around her, phone screen casting light across her face.

She didn’t reply.

Didn’t double tap.

Just stared.

The loneliness came back quiet, like fog creeping under the door.

It showed up in empty lunch tables. In group projects where Stella chose someone else “just for this time.” In inside jokes she didn’t understand anymore.

Zaniah stopped reaching out.

She told herself it was fine. That people grow apart. That she had survived worse. But at night, she’d catch herself wondering if maybe she was always meant to be the one left behind.

And still… every time Stella smiled at her, called her “Z,” or grabbed her arm in the hallway like nothing had changed, Zaniah felt this tiny spark of hope rise in her chest—

—and hated herself for it.

By January, Stella had fully found her place in the orbit of Vivian and Susan.

They were practically royalty at George Middle. Vivian with her expensive braids and quiet confidence that made teachers soft and students quiet. Susan with her glossy curls, rich-girl sneakers, and a laugh that could either make you or ruin you.

They didn’t talk to just anyone. But they started talking to Stella.

“You’re actually funny,” Vivian said once in science class, twirling her pen. “Not, like, try-hard funny. Just… normal.”

That was the beginning. After that, Stella was suddenly at their lunch table, walking with them to class, tagging them in TikToks Zaniah didn’t even see anymore.

And Zaniah? She was slowly being faded out like the last seconds of a song.

What made it worse was that Stella never said anything. She didn’t apologize. Didn’t explain. Just kept switching tables, switching tones, switching sides.

But James?

James started noticing Zaniah.

It began with eye contact — the kind that held a second too long across the cafeteria. Then he started saying “hey” in the halls. Not the generic kind. The real kind. The kind that made your name sound like it belonged in his mouth.

One day in English, they got paired for a group essay. Stella wasn’t in their group. She was across the room with Vivian and Susan, scribbling notes while laughing too loud on purpose.

James leaned toward Zaniah, voice low. “You write, like, actually write. That essay we did? Fire.”

Zaniah blinked. “Thanks.”

“You ever think about doing the writing club or something?”

She hadn’t. She didn’t even know anyone had noticed.

James tilted his head, smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You’ve got, like… this vibe. Like there’s a story running in your head all the time.”

Zaniah’s throat tightened.

Maybe he didn’t mean anything deep by it. Maybe he was just being nice. But no one had ever said something like that to her — something that felt like it saw through the quiet, not just around it.

And for a moment, she felt warm again.

By February, James was talking to her more often. Not flirting exactly — but something close. He walked next to her in the halls. Waited outside their shared class a few times. Asked her opinion on music. One day he even told her, “You don’t try to be cool. That’s kinda what makes you cool.”

Zaniah wasn’t used to that kind of attention.

She didn’t know what to do with it. So she did nothing. Just smiled, nodded, and tried not to look over at Stella’s table every five seconds.

But Stella was looking back.

Watching. Quiet. Noticing.

And something about her smile had changed.

It was tighter now.

Sharper at the corners.

Like a question Zaniah didn’t know the answer to.

The worst part wasn’t James.

The worst part was that Stella had stopped talking to her even when no one else was around.

No more late-night calls.

No more whispered jokes in class.

No more “Z.”

Just silence.

Except for that one day, when Zaniah passed her by the lockers and Stella looked her up and down — not mean, just cold — and said, “So… you and James now, or what?”

Zaniah froze. “What?”

Stella smiled, all teeth. “Nothing. Just asking.”

And walked away.

Zaniah stood there for a long time, heart racing, wondering what she’d just lost — and if she’d ever really had it in the first place.