1
Ever since my mother became our homeroom teacher, my life stopped being mine.
At first, people just avoided me.
Then they started erasing me.
“Sorry, that seat’s taken.”
Even when it wasn’t.
Group seating? I was always the leftover.
The desk no one wanted ended up next to the trash can, cracked at the corner, wobbling slightly every time I wrote.
Paper balls started landing on me like clockwork.
Never missing.
Never accidental.
I stopped looking up when I heard laughter. It was always about me anyway.
“She’s the teacher’s daughter. Of course she runs and reports everything.”
“Just ignore her. She’ll tell her mom again.”
That was my role in the classroom.
Not a student.
A surveillance system.
A snitch with a backpack.
My mother didn’t see it that way.
To her, I was “support staff.”
Her words.
“You’re my eyes in that classroom,” she told me once, squeezing my shoulders. “If I can’t see everything, you will.”
It wasn’t a request.
It was an assignment.
And in her world, assignments were not optional.
So I became what she wanted.
Not because I believed in it.
Because I didn’t know how to refuse her.
2
It got worse when she started teaching my class directly.
A homeroom teacher transfer.
Sudden.
Official.
Unavoidable.
At the announcement assembly, she stood on stage and smiled like she belonged there.
And I swear, the moment she did, my classmates looked at me differently.
Not curiosity.
Not excitement.
Calculation.
Like I had just become an extension of her authority.
Something to be managed.
Or eliminated.
The first week, she started using me.
“If it wasn’t for my daughter reporting this, I wouldn’t even know what’s going on in this class.”
I froze every time she said it.
Heads turned.
Eyes locked.
And just like that, I wasn’t just disliked anymore.
I was useful.
And usefulness is the fastest way to become hated.
By the second month, I ate lunch alone.
By the third, I stopped sitting anywhere except the back corner.
By the fourth, even the trash-can desk felt like a target.
3
Then came the group chat.
That’s where it really broke.
Someone sent a screenshot during class.
A message from my mother.
She had taken things students said online and projected them onto the board.
Publicly.
During homeroom.
Her face was cold when she read them out loud.
“So this is what you think of me?”
The class didn’t respond.
Nobody ever responded when she got like that.
Except me.
Because she always looked at me after.
Waiting.
Confirming.
As if I was supposed to translate their guilt into obedience.
And then she saw my message.
I had written it without thinking:
“I’ll delete the chat history. The homework load is really heavy, I’ll try talking to her.”
That was it.
Nothing more.
But she circled it on the board like evidence in a trial.
“Even my own daughter thinks I’m unreasonable,” she said.
And then she smiled.
Not kindly.
Not warmly.
Like a verdict had just been reached.
4
The slap came before I could even process what was happening.
Not hard enough to knock me down.
Just enough to make sure everyone heard it.
The room went silent.
Then came the voices.
Not confusion.
Not concern.
Accusation.
“She’s always trying to get special treatment.”
“No wonder grades are slipping.”
“She probably tells her mom everything we say.”
I tried to breathe.
But it felt like something was tightening around my chest.
Not pain.
Pressure.
Like the room itself had decided I didn’t deserve air.
“Mom…” I tried.
My voice barely worked.
I corrected myself immediately.
“Teacher… I can’t breathe.”
That’s when she looked at me like I was performing.
Like I had chosen the worst possible moment to be dramatic.
“Stop acting,” she said. “Everyone’s watching.”
I fell to my desk.
Not dramatically.
Not intentionally.
My body just… stopped cooperating.
Someone suggested calling an ambulance.
She shut it down immediately.
“No one is leaving this room for fake emergencies.”
Fake.
That word stuck to me more than the slap.
Because in her version of reality, suffering only counted if she authorized it.
5
When I stopped moving, she didn’t panic.
She didn’t rush.
She adjusted my jacket.
Fixed my posture.
Like correcting a messy assignment.
Then she said:
“If she keeps acting like this, give her another worksheet.”
The room stayed silent.
Not because they cared.
But because they were learning.
Learning what survival looked like here.
And then I died.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
Actually.
Quietly.
In the back row of a classroom that had already decided I was a problem.
6
The strange part?
Nothing stopped.
Class still ended.
Homework was still assigned.
My body was taken out eventually, but the system didn’t pause for it.
Systems never do.
They only adapt.
At the hospital, a doctor confirmed what everyone already knew but refused to say out loud.
My mother asked a single question:
“Can she still attend classes?”
There was a long silence before anyone answered.
That night, the group chat was still active.
Someone asked if homework was still due.
Someone else replied:
“Yeah. We still have school tomorrow.”
And then:
“It’s less stressful now.”
No one mentioned my name.
Not even once.
Like erasure had become routine.
7 — Final Scene
I stayed.
Not in the way living people stay.
But in the way unfinished things do.
I watched the classroom the next day.
The same seats.
The same trash-can desk.
The same teacher.
My mother stood at the front like nothing had changed.
“Discipline is about consistency,” she said.
Her voice steady.
Controlled.
Familiar.
And for a moment, I wondered if she had already decided what I was.
Not a daughter.
Not a student.
Just a mistake that had been corrected.
At the end of class, she glanced at the back corner.
Just once.
Very quickly.
Then looked away.
Like acknowledging it would make it real.
And I realized something I didn’t want to understand:
She didn’t lose me that day.
She just filed me away as a “resolved issue.”
And the classroom moved on.
Because in her world…
even death was just another form of classroom management.
