Lian had grown careful with his journal.
He carried it everywhere—pressed flat inside his backpack, tucked under his math notebook like a secret twin. The entries had grown longer. The drawings more intricate. He'd begun adding colors: amber for warmth, blue for hesitation, red for warning.
But some days, he wrote too much. Let himself bleed onto the page without thinking.
One of those days came after a confusing conversation with Jamie. They had stayed late after class, cleaning up from a group project, and she'd said something about her older brother leaving for college. About how quiet the house would be. About how she didn't like silence, even though people said she was loud.
Lian had nodded, unsure what to say.
Then he saw it—a flash of something behind her usual cheerful form. A web. Thin, glittering. Beautiful. And there, at the center, a spider.
But… the spider didn't seem cruel. Not yet.
That night, he drew her animal carefully. A spider in mid-sprawl, holding threads that wrapped around other shapes—monkeys, birds, wolves.
Jamie: Spider. Kind of scary. But kind, too? Doesn't let people see how much she's holding together.
He paused. Then wrote more.
I think she might be the only one who could understand this.
A week later, he showed her.
He shouldn't have.
They were in the back of the school library, the empty spot where old textbooks sat gathering dust. She had joked about skipping lunch, said she was bored of cafeteria spaghetti.
He hadn't meant to show her the journal. But he'd been talking, really talking, and she'd looked at him and said:
"You always seem like you're hiding something important."
And before he could stop himself, he pulled the journal from his backpack and opened it to her page.
She stared at it, unreadable.
For a few moments, she said nothing.
Then: "This is… cool. Kinda weird, but cool."
Lian exhaled. Smiled, even.
She asked to see more.
He let her.
The next day, whispers chased him between classes.
"Lian thinks we're animals."
"He's got, like, a crazy people journal or something."
"I heard he drew Jamie as a bug."
By lunch, the journal had disappeared from his locker.
By seventh period, a photocopied page was taped to the whiteboard in his science class.
A girl tangled in webs. The word "Spider" in shaky print.
Lian stared at it, his lungs hollow.
Laughter. Not loud, but sharp.
Jamie wouldn't look at him.
She never admitted to it. Never said a word.
But when he passed her in the hallway, her eyes darted away like they were made of glass.
That night, Lian didn't eat.
He tore the rest of the pages from his journal and stuffed them into the bottom of his desk drawer.
His hands shook.
He didn't cry.
He didn't even get angry.
He just felt… hollow.
For the first time in weeks, he stopped seeing animals.
Stopped trying.
Everyone was just a blur of faces.
Even his own.
But before he fell asleep, he remembered Mr. Arman's words.
"You're never the only one. You're just the first to admit it."
He didn't want to be the first anymore.
Didn't want to see what no one else could see.
Didn't want to carry it alone.