Invisible To Her Bully (Jessa and Noah) novel Chapter 290

290

Chapter 290

Jessa

It was quiet.

+25 Bonus

Too quiet for a school that had spent the last four years feeling like it was always watching me.

The front doors were unlocked–probably because of some after–school event–but the halls were empty. No lockers slamming. No voices echoing. No whispers trailing behind me like shadows.

Just… silence.

I stepped inside anyway.

I don’t even know why I came.

Maybe I needed to see it like this.

Without the noise.

Without the people.

Without the version of me that always existed here.

My boots echoed against the tile as I walked down the main hallway. The sound felt louder than it should’ve, like the building wasn’t used to someone moving through it alone.

I passed my locker.

Stopped.

For a second, I just stared at it.

This stupid metal box that somehow held so many versions of me.

The girl who kept her head down.

The girl who pretended not to hear things.

The girl who believed everything people said about her.

I reached out, resting my fingers against the cool metal

“You’re not that girl anymore,” I whispered,

The words felt strange out loud.

But not wrong.

Not anymore.

I opened the locker slowly.

It was almost empty now.

Just a couple of books. A pen that didn’t work. A folded piece of paper shoved in the corner that I didn’t even remember putting

there.

I pulled it out, unfolding it carefully.

And I almost laughed.

1/7

Chapter 290

It was an old worksheet.

Doodled all over.

Little scribbles in the margins.

A random heart.

A name half–written, then scribbled out like I didn’t want anyone to see it.

I shook my head, smiling a little despite myself.

God.

I was so different back then.

Or maybe….

I wasn’t

Maybe I just didn’t know how to be myself yet.

I closed the locker and leaned back against it, looking down the empty hallway.

This place had felt so big once.

So important.

Like everything that happened here mattered more than anything else in the world.

The whispers.

The rumors.

The looks.

+25 Bonus

The feeling that every mistake, every awkward moment, every wrong move was being recorded somewhere for people to replay

later.

I thought this place defined me.

I really did.

If people here thought I was ugly…

Then I must be.

If they thought I didn’t belong with Noah…

Then maybe I didn’t.

If they laughed…

If they stared…

If they decided who I was-

Then that was it.

That was my reality.

I pushed off the locker, walking slowly down the hall again.

217

Chapter 290

Past classrooms.

Past doors I’d sat behind for hours pretending to understand things while my brain was somewhere else entirely.

Past the cafeteria.

I paused at the entrance.

God.

That place.

Lunch tables.

The worst kind of stage.

I could still see it in my head-

The way people would look.

The way conversations would stop when you walked by.

The way a single comment could follow you for weeks.

And then…

I saw something else.

Mariah.

Sliding into the seat next to me like she owned the place.

Rolling her eyes at someone across the room.

Talking loud on purpose so I wouldn’t feel small.

Like she was daring anyone to say something.

I smiled softly.

I wasn’t alone.

Even when I thought I was,

I moved on, my steps slower now.

Thinking.

Remembering.

Letting it all settle in a way I never had before.

Because I didn’t need to run from it anymore.

I reached the double doors that led to the gym.

Pushed them open.

The space echoed.

Empty bleachers.

Dark scoreboard.

+25 Bonus