You arrive at school and put on your first mask. You sit still, an obedient student, a bit of a know-it-all. You speak only when spoken too, raise your hand only to use the bathroom. At around eleven o’clock, your mask changes. You like this class, so you put on your happy face. You joke. You laugh. No one notices the brief moments your mask slips.
You talk to a friend after class. She says something that makes you smile. You almost take off your mask for a moment and tell her the secret you’ve been keeping for nearly a year. Almost. You head over to lunch, where you eat alone. No need for masks. No one’s there to see you.
By fifth period your mask starts to sag. It becomes harder to hide your face. Still, no one notices. In the bathroom after sixth period, you see a shadow of a face as you walk by the mirror.
After school, you hold the door for a crowd of people. One kid smiles at you. “You’re going to do great things one day,” he says. You smile back. He doesn’t know you and you don’t know him, but for a moment it doesn’t matter. Your mask briefly disappears. Briefly.
You pass a group of girls. A few seconds ago, they were waving goodbye to a friend. Suddenly their masks change. Nastiness emerges from their lips. They bad-mouth their friend. You look away. You barely catch a glimpse of the mask slipping off the face of one of them, and you see regret.
Distracted, you almost bump into a friend while rounding the corner. You think they notice as you change into your happy face, but they just smile and wave goodbye.
You sit on the bench in front of the school parking lot, completely alone. You take your mask off. Suddenly, you wonder what your face looks like. What your face really looks like. You realize that you doubt you’d recognize it. Do you know yourself? There’s no one around. Alone on the bench, no one sees you cry.
Your father’s car arrives and he picks you up. He smiles when he sees you.
“How was your day?” He asks.
You think about your masks. You think about the girls and their friend. You think about eating lunch alone.
“Fine,” you say, smiling as the masks go back on.
The City High Review 