The bathroom door slammed open with a sound so sharp it rattled the metal frame. The noise echoed in the empty hall, thunderous and jarring, but Ava didn’t care who heard it. She didn’t care if the world knew what she was feeling.
All she wanted was escape—escape from the cruelty, escape from the voices, escape from the memories she couldn’t outrun.
She didn’t think. She just ran. Her feet barely touched the floor as she rushed to the nearest stall, yanking the door open with such force it nearly came off the hinges. She shoved it closed with trembling hands, locking it with a desperate twist.
Her fingers fumbled with the latch, slick with sweat, but she didn’t care. The cold tiles beneath her hit her with a brutal impact as her legs gave way.
She crumpled to the ground, her body too heavy, too weak to hold itself up. The cold of the floor seeped through her clothes, biting into her skin, but Ava barely noticed. Her arms wrapped around her knees, pulling them tight to her chest as if she could somehow hold herself together.
But the cracks inside her had spread too far, too deep. Nothing could hold it in.
And then the tears came. Hot. Ugly. Relentless.
They rushed out of her like a river breaking through a dam, the force of them swallowing her whole. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried like this, not with such raw, aching pain.
Her breath came in gasps, jagged and desperate, as she collapsed further into herself. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry in so long—hadn’t allowed herself to feel anything that vulnerable, that broken. But now there was nothing stopping it.
These weren’t the gentle tears of someone who had moved on. These weren’t the quiet, self-assured sobs of someone who knew their worth.
No, these were the same tears she had cried all those years ago—the ones she had buried under layers of strength and resilience, pretending they were gone.
But they were still there. Waiting. Lurking. And now, they are back.
“I’m not that girl,” she whispered through the sobs, her voice cracking like glass under pressure. “I’m not that girl anymore… I’m not.”
Her words felt hollow, like they didn’t belong to her. She had told herself a thousand times that she was different now. Stronger. Better.
She had fought so hard to rebuild herself after everything—after all the hurt, all the whispers, all the shame. She had worked so damn hard to erase that version of herself—the scared, fragile girl who had let herself be torn apart.
But the truth stung sharper than the cold floor beneath her.
Inside her, that girl was still there, just beneath the surface. Her voice was quiet, but it was there, whispering in the dark corners of her mind, reminding her of what she used to be.
What she had survived.
Her hands gripped the sleeves of her hoodie, tugging them over her face to hide the tears she couldn’t stop. She rocked back and forth in the small space, the stall feeling suffocating.
The world outside was too loud, too bright, but inside this tiny corner, it was just her and the sound of her own heartbeat.
“I left this behind,” she choked out. “I survived this. I fought to become someone else… someone stronger. Someone who didn’t cry in bathroom stalls just because some stupid boy thought he could tear her apart…”
Her laugh was bitter. It broke halfway through, strangled by the weight of everything she had fought to leave behind. “But here I am. Same stall. Same hurt. Same damn story.”
Her phone had died earlier that morning—hadn’t it? It didn’t matter.
She was fifteen again, in this girl’s body, this body that felt like a stranger’s. A reminder of everything she had wanted to forget.
And the air—God, the air smelled like cheap perfume, like the kind she used to wear when she was trying to be someone she wasn’t, someone who could just blend in and disappear.
She blinked away more tears, staring blankly at the graffiti on the stall door. Someone had scratched a name there, encircled with a heart.
How many times had she looked at that same scribble? How many hours had she spent wishing she could just sink into the walls, disappear, become nothing at all?
She let out a long, shuddering breath and whispered, “Just breathe. You’re not that girl. You’re not.”
But even as she said it, the voice in her head mocked her. Aren’t you?
The sound of the bathroom door creaking open pulled her back to the present. She froze. Her pulse shot into her throat, and she held her breath, listening.
Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, too loud. They were coming toward her—coming closer, coming like the weight of a nightmare she couldn’t escape.
“Someone’s in here!” Her voice cracked, sharp with fear, panic rising in her chest. “It’s occupied!”
The footsteps didn’t stop.
The sound grew closer, growing louder with every second that passed. She felt her heart slamming in her chest, a frantic rhythm she couldn’t control.
The blood pounded in her ears, drowning out everything but the sound of those footsteps.
No. Please. No.
She pressed herself further into the corner of the stall, pulling her knees even tighter to her chest. She could hear her breath, shallow and quick, and her pulse thumping in her neck like a drumbeat.
The footsteps stopped just outside her stall. Silence. Only the hum of the overhead lights filled the space. For a moment, there was nothing. Nothing but the sound of her own blood rushing, the air thick with tension.
Then the stall next to hers creaked open. A long, drawn-out groan of metal. The silence was broken, but it didn’t ease the tension. It only made it worse.
She could hear his voice then. Low. Mocking. And so, so familiar, like poison from a wound that had never fully healed.
“Didn’t know whales could cry too.”
Her stomach lurched. She clenched her fists, holding back the surge of panic and disgust that rose in her chest.
How could it still feel like this after all this time? How was he still capable of reaching inside her and twisting until it hurt all over again?
This time, though, she wouldn’t let him. She couldn’t.