Priyet's Character Story

Chapter 1

I look nervously around the classroom, surrounded on all sides by other newly enrolled students.
With backs straight and eyes wide, they listen intently as our professor explains about life at the school.

Currently, the professor is talking about roles students can take on in order to show their independence.
Clever kids join the student council. Athletic kids take up sports. Good-looking kids are hall monitors.
Everyone around me has something they're good at,
and they volunteer for their new roles with enthusiasm.

As roles are chosen and students depart, I find myself growing increasingly sullen.
I'm not a fast thinker, you see, nor am I especially pretty or active.
Honestly, I don't know what role I could take.

Ultimately, I don't volunteer for anything—a choice
I attempt to justify by telling myself I don't have anything to be proud of anyway.

Chapter 2

You're going to be last, I think.
You're going to be last because you're ALWAYS last. Always have been, always will be.
Someone always stands in the center of the stage, but that someone is never me. I'm too dull.
Too plain. Whatever role I have in this world, I know it will be a minor one.

The next thing I know, I find myself sitting in an empty classroom with
an orange sunset illuminating the windows.
The clock hands tick, tick, tick, the moments away from my life,
and for some reason I cannot explain, I begin to panic.
I bolt out of my seat and throw open the classroom door,
only to realize I have absolutely nowhere to go.

Chapter 3

The school is a maze, and I wander its hallways without a clear destination.
After turning this way and that, I finally find myself standing in front of the library.
The room is empty. Silent. It's as if time has simply...stopped. After a long moment,
I slowly exhale and take my first steps inside.

I feel a deep affinity for the untouched, dusty books that line the shelves,
and without thinking, I reach up and take one of them down. I have time.
I have all the time in the world. So I begin to read—and as I do so,
I realize I have finally found my place of solace.

Chapter 4

Eventually, the library becomes my second home—one where I always take
the seat one removed from the window.
But one day, I'm startled from my familiar solitude when someone calling from across the room.
"Hey, you're that girl who's always here, right?" says the student,
either unaware or ignoring the shock and confusion on my face. "Well, I need your help."

It turns out the student is in my class, and has been having trouble with a particularly tricky assignment.
I pick out a few books that I think could help and think nothing more of it, but a few days later,
she sends me a thank-you letter. Almost without realizing it,
I become the go-to person for any and all things library-related.
The word was out: If you needed help finding any kind of book,
go ask the girl near the window.

Eventually, I became the school librarian.
And while I still don't have much in the way of confidence or pride,
so long as I can help other people with something, I feel like it gives me just the slightest bit of courage.