Silent. Ignored. A wallflower. I may speak sometimes, but hardly. Singing? Out of the question. I’m just two-dimensional space, fading into the background. There is this one boy who tries to speak to me and say hi. Dark, soft hair, bright green eyes, but I ignore him and push him away.
My name is Natalie Dark. I’m a sophomore at Gardenfield High School. I’ve never won any special awards or actually had the guts to try. Do I even have any friends? Well, I’ll let you figure out that one.
Okay, I lied. I did have one friend, along time ago in seventh grade. Her name was Angelina Lawson. She was nothing like an angel. I had decided to try out for the talent show and sing. I can sing. My parents and relatives said so. And I believe them, or shall I say… believed them.

I had planned on singing “Soul Sister” by Train for the talent show and had practiced for weeks and weeks. Angelina had tried out for the talent show with some type of dancing act. We decided together that it didn’t matter who won; we’d tried to support each other.

Apparently, Angelina had been lying to me. She wanted to win. She wanted to win so desperately that when I was onstage singing and twirling onstage, she rolled down marbles, that she had stolen for a student who was doing a magician’s act before my turn, at my feet, making me fall off the stage and hit the ground on my head.

I woke up later in the hospital a few days later, with a throbbing headache and a concussion. I also learned that Angelina had won the talent show. No one knew why the marbles rolled out onstage. The talent show directors had figured that it must have been left over from the magician’s act and never had been picked up and fallen out. They claimed my concussion as an accident. But I knew it was not an accident. I remember the hardness of the eyes, the tight lips, the pale face of the girl who made me fall, when I turned sideways before I fell. The person whom I thought was my best friend. Angelina.

I never sang again after that day. I never tried to make new friends either. I couldn’t learn how to trust people or whom to trust. I’m just shut inside my own mind. Singing to myself in my mind. Silent singing.

I am about to leave the lunchroom and go to class early. There is nothing fun about eating lunch alone. But I hear something. Words. Music. Singing. A familiar voice. I walk forward slowly, following my ears and come to a door, opening it carefully.

It’s the dark-haired boy, strumming a guitar and singing to himself with his eyes clothes in an empty classroom, all by himself. His singing brings tears to my eyes because it reminds me of myself, my soul, my passion for singing. I try to keep quiet, but I can’t help it and let out a small hiccup.

He opens his eyes, and sees me, blushing red. I think it looks adorable that he blushes.

“I’m just practicing for the talent show,” he says in the same sweet voice that he talks to me and sings with. “My house is really loud because we’re all musicians so I practice alone here, where it is quiet. Why don’t you sing with me?”

I’m about to say no and refuse him. But when I think about singing with him, my heart flutters and feel full again and never empty and full of longing like it had did for so many years.

I have made up my mind on what to do about my life. I will remain quiet no longer.

I open my mouth and begin to sing.