Walking around school before my Literature class is bliss. Not because Literature is the last class of the day, nor because I know once I’m done I’ll have no homework waiting for me, only an afternoon spent by my grandma’s side, cooking and telling tales – more because this high school is some kind of jungle, and I’m a watcher.

I never get involved, I don’t want to – but it’s not like I don’t belong.

I, too, am part of this ecosystem, but I’m a silent, colorful decorative bird.

I’ve got no interest in being a roaring lion or a running zebra.

I listen and I watch, I leave when things get dirty, and that’s how I survive – by standing six feet away from both peril and safety.

Fights usually break just before lunch, and the cracks last for all the remaining classes. I’ve seen more than one of my classmates be targeted at lunch and enter Literature class with yogurt all over their clothes, breadcrumbs in their hair.

That’s one of the many good reasons to be an observer – you will never be a victim. And being a victim is the worst aspect of high school, because while I could be a perpetrator if I wanted to, I couldn’t stand my pride to be injured.

Today, though, despite my careful planning, having taken my usual stand during a fight – apparently, someone kissed someone else’s boyfriend and publicly said so, don’t we love some stupid high school drama? – and having worn the colorful feathers of an observer, I have found myself in the line of fire.

So, when I manage to get to the bathroom, right before Literature class, there’s plenty of cheese and breadcrumbs in my hair.

Luckily, I also have braids on, which means I should be able to get rid of all this stuff pretty easily.

Had anyone told me I’d someday cosplay a mac n’ cheese sandwich…

Standing in front of the mirror and letting my hair down one braid at the time, I start hearing the growing silence of the empty corridors – the next period is starting, and there’s no way I’ll get to Literature in time for the rollcall. Guess I’ll just get my hair back in shape and go home.

As silence creeps in, though, I can’t but notice the muffled cries coming from one of the bathroom stalls.

I blink, putting on my uncaring face, because it’s not the first time I hear someone cry and moan after a failed test, or a B after a career of As, but the cries don’t stop despite getting weaker. And as I sit in the bathroom stall next to the occupied one, I notice blood on the pavement – not as much as for it to be worrying, and an ambulance needed, but enough for a tampon to contain in a day. A cheap tampon.

“Hey” I call out, keeping my voice low as not to attract one of the school’s janitors.

They are not the friendliest of people, especially not when it comes to bleeding on the floor, and I don’t want to spend the next hour cleaning someone else’s blood on their behalf.

“Hey, do you need a tampon? Have you run out of toilet paper?”