Aria reached her class and sat in her desk in the fourth row, watching the other students settle into their places. She had perfected the art of acting aloof and collected when the truth was that inside, the buzz of anxiety ricocheted incessantly inside her chest and made her breath shallow. This class was like all the others. She would listen to the squeak of the marker against the whiteboard. She would watch the contained gestures of her teachers. She would learn and regurgitate the material taught to her, not because she was interested in it, but because she was afraid. She was afraid of the consequences of not doing so. Aria could not conform and she did not fit in, but she went to great lengths to avoid drawing negative attention to herself.

For Aria, school was yet another part of the prison sentence of childhood. Unlike so many of her fellow students, she had no plans to go to college. She swore to herself that after her time was up she would not sit in another classroom for as long as she lived.

Aria had no friends to speak of. Loneliness graced the corridors of her life. So when the final school bell rang, she put one of her headphone earbuds in her right ear, chose a song to play and pulled her hoodie over the top of her head so that it hid her profile. Ignoring any others, she made her way to the city bus stop, where she waited with a loose collection of vagrants, students and businessmen. The bus swayed this way and that, starting and stopping to let people on and off. She glanced at their faces, trying to feel the people beneath them, but averted her eyes if they tried to make eye contact. The very connection that she wanted so desperately to make frightened her.

The bus pulled up to a stop in a suburban neighborhood on the south end of the city. Aria inched her way sideways past the other passengers’ knees and briefcases. The air outside was unfriendly, a frigid grayness known only to cities. She walked the six blocks to her house with her face turned toward the cement sidewalk, careful not to step on the cracks. Aria didn’t like to think of herself as superstitious, but when all was said and done, she was. She made the turn toward her house reluctantly. Went up the stairs and stood before the pastel plaque on the door that read “Bless O Lord, this thy house, and all who enter in.” Turning off her music, she opened the door. The air inside carried the fake scent of cheap cinnamon potpourri.

Inside, the sound of clanking in the kitchen was suppressed by a voice that called to her, “Aria, is that you?”

“Yeah.”