The bell didn't ring this time.
It was the quiet rustle of notebooks closing, a few groans from behind laptops, and the final words from the lecturer as he said, "Submit your scripts at the front. Forty minutes. Good luck."
Eli didn't move.
His paper sat on the desk like it was mocking him.
Advanced Calculus – Midterm Assessment.
The words blurred. The room blurred. Everything did.
He blinked.
Still blank.
He knew this material. He had revised it a dozen times. But now, it was like his mind had turned into a locked vault, and he'd lost the combination.
All he could hear was the ticking of the wall clock and the occasional cough from a classmate.
His heart pounded faster than time.
Across the lecture hall, the students began scribbling, heads bowed in focused rhythm. Pages flipped. Pens flew.
Eli gripped his pen.
Wrote a number.
Stopped.
Everything after that first answer felt like stepping off a cliff with every step.
A week ago, this would've been easy. He was that guy — the quiet one who always submitted early, always scored high, always disappeared before anyone could ask how he did it.
Now?
Now, he felt like he'd forgotten how to be himself.
Beside him, Daniel was muttering formulas under his breath as he calculated. The girl two seats down had a calculator tapping furiously.
Eli just… sat.
"Ten minutes left," the lecturer announced.
He stared at his page.
I'm failing.
The words stabbed at him like a whisper only he could hear.
I'm failing — and I don't care.
His hands trembled as he dropped the pen. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts speak for him.
Phone Note – Entry #50"I broke today. Something inside me just… stopped. I looked at that test and it was like trying to read a foreign language underwater.""I don't know how to explain this to anyone. I don't know if I want to.""This isn't just stress. It's like something's wrong in my wiring. Or maybe it's been wrong for a long time and today just proved it."
When time was up, Eli turned in a paper that was barely filled. The lecturer didn't look at him — just added it to the stack and moved on.
Nobody stopped him in the hallway.
Nobody said, "Are you okay?"
Not Mia, who was standing near the vending machine, pretending not to notice he'd walked past her.Not Daniel.Not the girl who once called him the "quiet genius."
He ducked into the men's room, locked himself in a stall, sat down, and just… breathed.
Or tried to.
Later that evening, at home, no one asked about his test.
His mom didn't even look up from her phone as he walked in. She was watching something — probably a show she didn't even enjoy.
But his brother, Aaron, caught him at the kitchen.
Leaning against the fridge, smirking, arms crossed.
"So, I heard the mighty brain short-circuited today," he sneered. "Guess genius doesn't run on trauma."
Eli didn't flinch. He didn't reply.
He walked up the stairs and shut his door.
This time, he didn't write in his diary. He didn't even cry.
He sat at his desk and stared at the mirror.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn't recognize the boy looking back at him.