Since Jane had a long history of constant anxiety and uneasiness, her father took special care to break the news to her that she would be moving to a new school.

She reacted almost comically, unblinking and indifferent. Her mother comforted her in vain, caressing away invisible tears; she needed no comfort. She stayed paralyzed until the first day of school, until her hands started trembling without warning while she was buttoning her new, ruffled shirt. When she arrived at the school, she was assigned a girl with squinty eyes to show her around. The girl never looked at Jane once during the tour, and afterward, when they were saying goodbye, only attempted at a brief, perfunctory glance that seemed to look past Jane, not at her. Jane wandered around the vast campus, stumbling into her classes and remaining scrunched up and silent in the back of the classrooms until the shrill lunch bell sent everyone scrambling.

She became lost amidst the sea of changing faces and screeching voices, and found herself staggering into the bathroom. There was a pack of girls staring intently into the mirror, mending their makeup with confident, bold strokes. Jane squeezed herself into a stall and collapsed right onto the cold, gleaming black tiles, exhaustion overwhelming her.

A putrid smell lingered in the damp air, and she thought of her packed lunch from home, a squished, gray tuna sandwich, feeling glad she didn't have to go through the embarrassment of unwrapping the crinkled foil and revealing its ugliness. She thought of the girl that gave her the tour, how she had probably already forgotten about her. She thought of how she would forever be an unrecognized face and unfamiliar name that no one remembered.

She began to sob, attempting to muffle her whimpers by clutching her clammy palms to her mouth, shoulders shaking as she struggled to compose herself. She could hear the girls outside whispering and the clacking of their hurried footsteps as they scurried out of the bathroom. The stall was strangling her, its gray walls shrinking until she was aware only of her uneven breaths and complete, utter solitude.

She was sixteen years old, with pale blonde, limp hair that draped around her ashen face, with clouded slate eyes and a shrunken posture exuding doubt and hesitation. She wept, no longer holding back her ungainly gulps for air as she lost control over her thick tears. Abruptly, in between her heaving breaths, she looked up and saw a poster, carelessly plastered onto the stall wall with thick layers of soggy tape, that asserted, "BE THE CHANGE", in vivid, crimson block letters.

She had no idea what the "change" in the poster was referring to. But suddenly, she saw herself as the "change", confident and self-assured, bursting out of the smothering stall. She envisioned herself as someone impossible to forget, someone that was special.

She shook her head with fierce determination, beating the image out of her mind as quickly as it had appeared. "No", she repeated intensely, her pale brows furrowed. She would never be that girl. She hushed her emboldened pulse and clenched her widened, excited eyes, afraid of someone overhearing, sensing her overstepping of boundaries.

But the throbbing in her feverish heart only grew, and she could not remain still. Shaking, she slowly rose from the floor and stared at the poster, hypnotized by its vividness, its color; it beckoned to her with its possibilities and danger. Unable to contain herself, she hissed in a quivering but firm whisper, "I will change! I will BE the change!", her lungs bursting with vitality. She had never been so full before.

She erupted out of the confines of the stall, and instantly became hypnotized by her reflection in the mirror. She was flushed for perhaps the first time in her life, color and energy rushing through her. She looked messy and wild and untamed. Her eyes gleamed like glinting black stones and sweat sparkled on her forehead. She was alive, and everyone would know it. She hoped for the first time in her life that she would be known by everyone, that she would be known as the special one, the "change".

She strolled regally down the hallway, sticking out her chin and curling her lips in a serene smile. She burst through the cafeteria doors. The bustle stopped. All eyes were on her, staring. She was elated. They finally recognized her; they knew who she was. They would say her name; they would look at her, not through her, amazed by her presence and fully aware of it.

Hesitation clouded her moment of fulfillment as she noticed the girls from the bathroom standing huddled like a flock of crows. They were pointing at her and cawing with derisive screeches of laughter. They could not see her as she saw herself now, exceptional and transformed, because they were fixated upon her peculiar, salt-stained eyes and her rough gulps for life that had interrupted the stillness. They were looking at her to shame her for daring to be visible. The murmurs around her grew until they were roaring like stormy waves, engulfing her.

As she drowned, she began to weep once more as she realized that invisibility, once her formidable enemy, had been a blessing.