She had not eaten dinner, and she had thrown up her lunch. She urgently needed to lose weight again, because the insult "piggy" was beginning to surface once more, lurking beneath the indifference.

Yet another argument with her mother ended with a door slamming, after her mother had slapped her once again.

The arguments were always about the same thing: her mother thought only of herself and did not care at all how her daughter felt.

Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, a few of which exonerated Deborah, her mother. The woman was certainly impulsive; she feared that her daughter would take her own life; she feared that she would swallow several pills at once. She feared many things, and instead of preventing them or addressing them at their source, she merely tried to mitigate their consequences. She simply hit her daughter, as though doing so would take away her desire to kill herself. The same way a spanking makes a mischievous child stop misbehaving.

It was also possible that such aggressive behavior was the result of having exhausted every avenue they had tried to help her recover. It could have been many things, but Emma saw only one with complete clarity, and it was no less true than the others: her mother was a hysterical, unhinged madwoman who thought only of herself.

It was not that the blow or the pain mattered much to her, nor did the stinging sensation in her cheeks. On the contrary, it was something she even sought through self-harm. But it was the act itself: the lack of understanding, the coldness, that arrogant pride of parents who think they know everything when, in fact, they know nothing and understand nothing.

She had wandered quite a distance from home and was now truly far away… and faint with exhaustion, lack of sleep, and, of course, not eating.

How much longer was this torture going to last? she wondered. When would she find the courage to end it all once and for all?

She sat down on a bench along the street and mentally reviewed that day at school. A day like any other.

In the morning, the school smelled of industrial cleaner, and there was dampness in the hallways. She walked close to the left wall of the corridor, as she had for years, with her backpack hanging from one shoulder and her eyes fixed on the floor. She no longer expected to be shoved. She no longer feared that someone would force her head into a toilet. That ended long ago. Now the harm was quieter, colder, harder to report.

As she passed, the conversations did not stop altogether. They merely dropped in volume. Stifled giggles. A comment left unfinished. A "Did you see…?" that was never fully voiced.

Savannah and Madison no longer looked at her directly. They preferred to glance at her from the corners of their eyes, like someone looking at something unpleasant but unavoidable. When they crossed paths in the same hallway, they moved aside just enough to let her pass, without saying a word. That tiny gesture hurt her more than any insult from the past.

In class, the seat next to Emma was usually left empty. Though not always. Sometimes someone sat there because they had to, when the teacher assigned seats. Then the other student—girl or boy—would lean as far away as possible or take out a phone and become absorbed in it, as though her presence were an irritating background noise. Most of the teachers preferred not to notice. Some gave her a pitying look that she hated almost as much as their contempt. Others simply ignored her. It was easier.

Only Ethan, another victim of bullying, showed any interest and did not mind sitting with Emma, though she was not particularly happy about it. The boy was hardly one of the popular kids—quite the opposite—and being seen with him could only make her problems worse. In any case, they could not sit together now even if they wanted to, since they were in different grades.

During recess, she took refuge in the library or in the most secluded corner of the schoolyard, behind the recycling bins. There, the sound of laughter and soccer balls reached her only faintly. Sometimes she took out a book and pretended to read, though the letters blurred together. Other times she simply sat still, counting the minutes until the bell rang. Her body felt heavy. Her head throbbed with the dull migraine that had already become part of her daily routine.

Although she was now "chubby" again, it was only temporary. She had lost weight, after all. She was no longer the "piggy" she had been at thirteen. But the physical change had brought her no relief. It had merely replaced one nickname with another: "the crazy one." She heard it whispered whenever she passed near groups of students. Sometimes she did not even need to hear it. The way they looked away or laughed at her was enough. "Hey, did you know she sees ghosts?" they would say as soon as she walked away, or even while she was still nearby.

But Emma had learned not to respond. Not to fight. Not to exist anymore than strictly necessary.

But that strategy, far from protecting her, was hollowing her out inside. With each day that passed without anyone saying a kind word to her, without anyone looking at her like a normal person, she felt a little more transparent. As though she were slowly being erased from the world.

At night, when she finally managed to fall asleep, she dreamed of endless hallways where every door was closed and her classmates’ voices became a constant, incomprehensible murmur that pursued her without rest. She woke with her heart racing and the certainty that, although the physical bullying had ended, the harm was still alive. It had merely changed form.

She rose from the bench and started back home. She needed sleep and rest, but the extra pounds weighed her down and, combined with the lack of food, made her legs feel heavier than usual.

She headed onto the county road that would take her back home, walking along the path at the side, where the streetlights illuminated the way. That was when a car stopped a short distance away.

There were two girls and a boy—the driver—and one of the passengers had said when she spotted her:

"Look! Isn’t that the crazy girl?"

"What crazy girl?" the boy asked.

"Well, more than crazy, she’s back to being ‘piggy’ now," Savannah added.

"Who? Emma?"

"Of course, Travolta. Who else would it be?"

"But what about the glasses?"

Madison shrugged. "According to her, she only needs them for close-up vision."

"Yeah, right," Savannah cut in. "Or maybe she just wants some guy to notice her?"

"Some guy?" They laughed.

"Yeah, sure!" Madison said. "Maybe if he’s blind…"

More laughter, this time loud and unrestrained.

Emma quickly realized who the car’s occupants were and tried to keep walking without stopping. But they followed her, pulling alongside her. Savannah, who was in the front passenger seat, called out to her:

"Emma! What are you doing out here? Come on! Get in! We’ll take you home."

Madison, who was in the back seat, opened the door for her, and the car stopped again a few yards farther ahead.

The girl considered whether or not to get in. She was certainly a long way from home and utterly exhausted. They would probably make fun of her, and in that car—Travolta’s car, belonging to one of the toughest troublemakers at school—she was not going to have a good time. Every second in there would be torture…

But she did not know whether she could make it home in her condition, so she decided to accept. When she reached the car and had barely touched the door to try to get in, the vehicle suddenly accelerated, the door slammed shut, and it sped away, tires squealing.

Emma stood there watching it disappear in the distance, while the laughter of the three occupants could be heard through the open windows.

Once again, they had made a fool of her…

She remained like that for several minutes, as though petrified, turned into a pillar of salt, staring at the car as it drove away and watching its two red taillights grow smaller and smaller. Until, at last, it rounded a bend and disappeared from view.

She began to cry. A bitter, desperate sobbing that overwhelmed her with anguish and despair; an inconsolable weeping that filled her with a profound urge to end her life right then and there.

And then she did the only thing she could do at that moment to escape the anguish. She saw another vehicle coming down the road and threw herself in front of it, clearly intending to be run over and end her life once and for all.

But she was not so lucky. The driver reacted quickly enough to swerve around her, then stopped a few yards farther down the road and got out of the vehicle.

"Young lady!" the man said when he reached her. He was about fifty years old. "Have you lost your mind?"

Emma tried to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand and replied:

"It’s just… I’m lost."

The man looked her up and down: a young woman with a stricken face, a vacant stare, swollen eyes hovering above two dark circles, a weary expression… She was certainly a pitiful sight.

"Where do you live?"

"On Park Street," she replied without looking at him.

"Come on, let’s go. Get in the car," he said, pointing to it. "I’ll take you home."