I don’t remember the last time someone said hello to me. At least not in a way that felt like they actually meant it. It’s like I’m invisible to everyone at school. It’s not that I’m quiet, I just… don’t fit. I never have. The teachers say I’ve got “learning differences,” but I know what that really means. I’m slow. I take forever to get what other kids seem to understand in seconds, and no one has the patience to wait around for me to catch up.

Most days, I walk the hallways with my hood pulled low, my backpack heavy, not just from books but from the weight of everything I don’t know how to say. The whispers never stop. Sometimes they’re about me, sometimes they aren’t—but it doesn’t really matter. It’s like I’m always on the outside, looking in.

The worst part is the lunchroom. I sit by myself, pretending like I don’t care. Pretending like the world isn’t caving in on me. I keep thinking about how easy it would be to make everything stop. To hurt them. Or myself. Anything to end the numbness. It’s not that I want to die, exactly. I just want to feel something. Something real. Anything that makes the loneliness go away.

Then, one day, something weird happened. I was walking to my next class, staring at the floor like usual, when I heard someone say, “Hey.”

I didn’t look up at first. I thought it was a mistake, like they were talking to someone else. But then they said it again, louder this time. “Hey, what’s up?” I glanced up, confused. It was this kid I’d seen before but never talked to. I think his name was Evan, or something like that. He smiled at me, like an actual smile, not the fake kind people give just to be polite.

“Uh… hey?” I mumbled back, still unsure if this was some kind of joke.

“You’re in my math class, right?” he asked, walking next to me like it was no big deal.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, gripping my backpack straps tighter. My heart was racing. I wasn’t used to people talking to me like I was normal.

“Cool. That class is brutal,” he laughed. “I can barely keep up.”

That caught me off guard. This guy? Struggling? He seemed like one of those kids who just got everything effortlessly.

“Same,” I admitted, surprised that I was actually talking. I didn’t know why, but it felt different. Less forced. Like he wasn’t trying to make fun of me or make a point. Just talking.

From that day on, Evan started saying hi every time he saw me. It was always something small—”What’s up?” or “Hey, how’s it going?”—but it made a difference. Suddenly, I wasn’t invisible anymore. He’d wave at me in the halls, and once, he even sat with me at lunch. Some other kids joined him too, and for the first time in forever, I wasn’t alone at the table.

It wasn’t like everything got magically better overnight. I still struggled in school. I still felt like I was different. But now, I didn’t feel like I had to carry all of that by myself. Evan didn’t treat me like I was broken or like I needed fixing. He just treated me like I was there. Like I mattered.

I guess it was something as simple as someone noticing me—saying hi, showing up—that started to change things. The thoughts about hurting myself or others started to fade. I mean, they were still there sometimes, but they didn’t feel as overwhelming. Because for once, I didn’t feel completely alone. I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was more out there for me. More than the silence. More than the anger. More than the pain I didn’t know how to handle. It’s weird to think that something as small as a hello could make a difference. But it did. And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe what I needed wasn’t some big, life-changing moment. Maybe it was just someone seeing me. Not the kid with the learning disability, not the quiet guy in the back of the class. Just… me.