(Fiction) The Glitch In Her Reality – Chapter 5 – The Stranger in the Canteen

Chapter 5: The Stranger in the Canteen

The next ripple came during lunch, which was funny because Norah always thought of lunch break as the most artificial thirty minutes of the day.

It was like everyone suddenly became an actor in a soap opera, eating sandwiches and pasta while delivering lines such as, “How’s your math paper?” and “Did you see his haircut?” and “OMG, she wore that?” Norah mostly just nodded and stared at her food, sometimes drawing circles on the table with her finger when nobody was looking.

But that day, a new boy sat across from her. It was strange because he did not say hi or ask if the seat was taken. He just sat down, opened his lunchbox, and said, “This food tastes like cardboard.”

Norah looked up, a little surprised, because usually people did not begin conversations with that kind of honesty. They built up to it, like a slow, polite lie. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Maybe you should try eating the box instead.” He grinned like someone who had been waiting his whole life for someone to say that.

His name was Joshua, and he had tired-looking eyes that did not match his loud voice. Norah noticed that right away, because she always noticed when people’s eyes did not match their energy, like maybe their soul was telling a different story than their mouth. She liked that about him instantly.

They talked a little, not much, but just enough to make her think, Okay, maybe this boy is not part of the script. Maybe he is writing his own too. By the end of lunch, he said, “You’re weird in a nice way,” and Norah replied, “You’re weird in a definitely suspicious way.” He laughed and walked away, and for the first time, she felt like she did not have to wipe herself clean before being seen.

That night, she did not write anything in her notebook. She just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how maybe, just maybe, the world was not entirely made of cardboard people. Maybe there were some who were made of something softer, something stranger, something like her.

And just like that, the next chapter of her not pretending had already begun.