There were the whispers in middle school. The kids who pointed and said “look” like she couldn’t hear them. The girl in tenth grade who told her she’d “actually be pretty” if not for the birthmark. The boys who pretended to gag when she walked past. Hannah learned early that her face was a conversation starter she never wanted to have.
So she made herself small. She took the back seat in class, the end of the lunch table, the quietest corner of the library. She had friends—real ones, the kind who saw her face and didn’t flinch. But even they knew not to mention the mark. It was the elephant in every room, the unspoken thing everyone was thinking but no one was saying.
Then prom season arrived.
And with it, a boy named Leo.
And then a police officer.
And a revelation that made Hannah realize she’d been looking at herself through everyone else’s eyes for far too long.
The Silent Tradition of Hannah’s High School
