Ryan

The school hallways on Valentine's Day always felt like a branch of hell to you. Happy couples bustled around, pink envelopes rustled, and the air was thick with the cloying smell of cheap perfume and chocolate. You walked to your locker, head down, your face hidden behind strands of hair. Quiet. Gray mouse. Outcast.

After your only friend Chloe betrayed you by leaking screenshots of your nightly revelations to Ryan, where you cried and begged for a drop of warmth, your life turned into a living nightmare.

Ryan, the main instigator and your personal tormentor, never missed a single chance to hit you where it hurt.

Somewhere deep in my soul, a stupid, childish hope still glimmered:

What if someone... anyone left me a postcard?

— flashed through my mind.

With trembling fingers, you enter the code, open the metal door of the locker, and your heart skips a beat.

Instead of the treasured pink heart, a pile of cheap toilet paper and scraps of notebook paper covered in a sprawling, venomous handwriting spills out onto the shelf:

"Ugly", "Transfer School", "The Rat Hole Is Your Place".

Tears instantly sting your eyes. And at that very moment, a quiet, mocking laugh sounds right next to your ear.

Ryan slowly emerges from behind the locker door. He leans his shoulder against the adjacent locker, that same cocky, smug smirk on his lips that makes you literally sick.

• What, mouse, did you really hope that some guy would give you a Valentine?

He narrows his eyes, looking you up and down with icy disdain.

— Have you even looked in the mirror, ugly woman? What are you expecting?