To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. Rachel didn’t mingle much that night, she was unusually quiet!Only a few hours before, she’d been traumatised, whilst trying to withdraw cash from a cashpoint machine?A man in a mask crept up behind her and demanded money out of her account. In the panic her mind went blank, she forgot her pin!Luckily, she remembered it...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. No one really paid her much attention as she walked to the back of the bar and settled into a booth. Maureen did notice the girl as she came out of the kitchen. The server looked the girl over carefully. She decided that ID needed to be checked. This new patron did not look nineteen; more like fifteen or sixteen. “What...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. Except for one, for him, she’s the antithesis of normal. His baby-blue eyes focus; sartorial elegance, that’s true, but he’s hearing the clarion call of love from the heartbeat under that regular hoodie. She’s his everything; his eyes fill with tears. Then his whimper, barely heard by others, pierces her. Wrapping him i...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie because that’s how she was defined; from home, through school to college. Yet deep within prowled a raging poet, a strutting rock star, a blazing meteor emanating the brilliance of a thousand dazzling suns. When, all alone, she braved that open mic night, one of the milling cool crowd casually asked, “Would you like a dr...

To everyone in the room, she seems like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie, but to me, she is so much more.  This outwardly unassuming woman is not who she claims to be. She is not the woman everyone sees. They see the version she presents because she is so skilled at it. Years of practice have trained her to blend in; to give the people what they want to see. What would make them comfortable, s...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, bluejeans, and a red hoodie. But looks can be deceptive; the clothes chosen deliberately to conjure up that very word—normal. The volunteers saw only what they expected to see; what they were meant to see. Don’t look here—nothing to worry about; nothing unusual. Only if you observed more carefully would you notice anything abnormal. If you were a li...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. No one knew how her fingers still fumbled when applying eyeliner and lipstick. Or the struggles she had endured to finally match her body to her soul.  No one knew how they had taunted her when she changed her name. Called her "freak".  No one knew... As she stood inside the new school, she released a long-held sigh of...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. Such a first impression meant a lot to Saffy, because a sense of normality set her in good stead for the admissions interview she'd dreaded for so long. It was all about confidence, and although The College of Further Education was very undemanding, Saffy had absolutely nothing on paper other than court and care orders...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. The Vans were a checkerboard pattern and Jeff Spicoli would have approved.  I grinned because I loved that movie. That was the year I came of age. Life was tasty and was about to get very gnarly.  I held out my hand. "Shall we dance, Princess?" She smiled. I could smell the scent of eucalyptus wafting through the open w...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, bluejeans, and a red hoodie. Nobody looked. No one cared. She was just another customer with a laptop, like so many others in the coffee shop. She ordered a drink, waited patiently, then took her cup to a table in the corner of the room. Not once did she look at any of the other customers as she sat down and opened her laptop. The clicking her finge...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, bluejeans, and a red hoodie. Only she heard the whirring servos, the soft click of gears, the hum of electronics. Only she knew who she really was. “Come on,” said the boy with the gun. “Five high, six die. Earn it.” He handed her the gun. Her frail, all-too-human finger curled around the trigger. This wasn’t happening to her. This wasn’t her life....

Downtown Los Angeles To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. They could see she was visibly nervous, understandably so, as were the other four people outside still waiting to be interviewed.  “Are you hurt anywhere?” the woman asked.  “Physically, no,” the girl answered. “Just shaken. Is it still going on?” “Yes,” said a man wearing a dark suit holding a cell...

To everyone in the room, she seemed just like a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. She stood alongside her husband and the other helpers, preparing food parcels for the homeless and needy. "Is that who I think it is?" asked one volunteer. "Yes it is," replied her colleague. "They often donate their time to help us." "But they want it kept a secret, so don't go telling anyone." "It's hard for them to p...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, blue jeans, and a red hoodie. She was. Normal. Her grandmother made certain of that. But Gloria, or Glory as her Gran called her, was also extraordinarily special. The universe saw to that. “Shuffle Challenge.”  Glory laughed after she said it, knowing her Gran was much hipper than she let on. She'd heard stories. She’d seen pics. “That’s your idea?...