Her eyes sweep around the room the moment after she's written down her final answer on an open-ended question. She's been ready for this test for quite some time, so it was only natural that the answers came to her so easily after hours of studying.
Her next challenge? Well, where should her test go?
Nobody else has moved from their seats, which means that she'll be the first one to stand up among her peers and hand in her test. But, the teacher never told them where to put their test. She thinks that being the first person to stand up and ask is incredibly scary, no matter how ridiculous she knows that she's being.
Her next class is even worse. She knows the answers to what the teacher asks, but still refuses to raise her hand or talk to anyone.
"Why don't you ever talk?" people ask her on the daily, which infuriates her to no end, but can she really blame them for asking the obvious? After all, the only thing loud about her is her pink lipstick.
What's even worse, she's dreading her lunch period. It would be better if at least one of her friends had it with her, but instead she was the odd one out, as luck would have it. She'd have to ask to sit at someone else's table, and the thought gives her anxiety.
Her heart drops to her stomach when she enters the bathroom to find three pairs of eyes immediately look her way, and she escapes into the stall to wait until the three girls leave and their whispering is silenced by the closed door. There's no way she'd use the sink while they were standing in front of it, if she did that, she'd have to ask one of them to move over.
Don't even mention the option of her finally talking to her crush. That's not even an option. How can she ever expect to get married when she can barely look a boy in the eyes for two seconds?
Ordering food comes with awkward stuttering over the phone and a quick and swift exchange of money with the giant box of pizza about to be consumed. Drive-throughs don't help either. Did she pull her car up far enough? Can they understand her through the microphone? What if they judge her for ordering two cheeseburgers when in actuality the other sandwich is for her sister?
Asking for a fitting room at the mall is equivalent to asking Ryan Gosling to be her Valentine. It's not going to happen anytime soon.
She hates being shy. She hates herself for not being as confident as her friends are, for being the drab of the party as opposed to being the life of the party. She hates not being noticed because of her discreet actions, and yet she also is relieved by it.
Until the day comes that she can break out of her shell, she'll just be the quiet, shy girl who fills up the empty space in the desk of a classroom.
She'll try one day, one darker lipstick shade at a time.
