🌸HER 🌸

Daphne has always been good at staying quiet.

It's easier that way. Easier to draw instead of talk. Easier to write things down instead of saying them out loud. Easier to notice people without letting them notice you back.

Zariah Churchill is not quiet.

She fills space without trying. She belongs to people in a way Daphne never has. At school she's loud, easy, surrounded. At home she's softer. Kinder. Carefully loved.

They aren't friends.

They don't run in the same circles.

But sometimes proximity changes things. Sometimes being forced to sit across from someone long enough makes you start seeing them differently. Makes you start seeing yourself differently too.

This is a story about the things people assume.
About the versions of ourselves we show in public and the ones we keep private.
About family - the kind you're born into and the kind you learn from.

And about what happens when someone who prefers the background realizes she doesn't want to be invisible anymore.