"The Last Bench Ghost"

"They say school days are the best days of your life. For me, they were a ten-year sentence."
Admission day felt like magic-the scent of new books, the crispness of a fresh uniform, and the promise of forever-friends. But magic fades fast when you're the one who can't keep up. In a world that only rewards the "competent," I quickly became invisible. Soon, the "forever-friends" became strangers, and the bright future I imagined turned into a cycle of isolation and red-inked failures.

Caught between the weight of academic trauma and the sting of betrayal, I had forgotten what it felt like to be seen. I was just the boy on the last bench, a ghost in the corridor of my own life.

Until one quiet friendship began to bloom in the darkest corner of the campus. A ray of hope in a decade of gray.