Creative Writing: Anathema

Once there was a girl. A girl that didn’t think she ever mattered. Sure, she had good parents and decent grades, but she never thought herself to be worth anymore than a plastic wrap on the ground. The girl isolated herself whenever she could, only speaking when it was required by her teachers. Even so, half the grade thought she was mute. She learned a fair amount of sign language to encourage the rumor, just so that more people would leave her alone. If anyone had truly paid attention to her, they would see that Anathema was always listening to music. Unless, of course, she was reading. She had what people would call friends, but they were certainly not that to Anathema. Dimitri and Asia managed to catch her attention one morning before
Other teens were chatting with each other, while Anathema read through her notes. All of her reading material had been finished the night before with her homework, and there was nothing in the class library that she hadn’t read before.
Even though she’d never admit to it, Anathema was smart. Tremendously smart. She just hated attention. The girl would do anything to avoid it. Even if that meant purposely getting questions wrong on tests and homework assignments. This way, she was just another average girl that no one would bother.
One day, Anathema sat down at her usual spot to find a small, black book in the desk compartment. This was quite odd because, well, no one used those compartments anymore. That was precisely why Anathema stored many items there. No one, not even janitors bothered to check
It was the first class of the day, meaning that someone must’ve left it the night before. Much to Anathema’s surprise, there were no markings on the book. It was as if it had been recently purchased, but there was no tag to confirm the suspicion.
Anathema’s fingertips grazed the black cover, a satisfying feeling washing over her. She opened the book to find messy ink pen on the cover page.
“Happy Early Birthday Anathema!” The handwriting was not familiar to Anathema. The writer seemed to be in a hurry with the pen being all smudged. It also gave the possibility of the writer being left-handed, but Anathema shooed the thought away; there were more attentive matters to address.
Her fingers traced the cursive, freezing once she ran over her name. She then quickly flipped through the book, finding empty pages of lined paper that caused Anathema’s eyes to sparkle with delight. Her eyes darted around, wondering if the present-giver was anyone in her class, but she chuckled at the thought. No one in this class knew her. During oral presentations, her name would be called, and the majority of the class would whisper,