My name is Kartik Singh, and I wasn't born to be invisible. In the eleventh grade, with my 85% score, I was a name people knew, the one everyone said was going to do great things. When the school announced the new Event Coordinator, everyone expected it to be Dev Rawat, Kabir, or Rohan Mehta. But I got the job.

At first, it felt like a win, a big celebration. But under the cheers, a quiet anger was brewing. Aditya Verma, whose scores weren't as good as mine, was seething. To him, my success wasn't something I earned; it was an insult to him.

The attacks started slowly. Teachers began to hear whispers about me: "Kartik is arrogant... Kartik is a tattletale... Kartik is unstable." Some of my classmates, including Kabir and Arjun Patel, joined in, feeding lies to our teacher, Mrs. D'Souza. By the time the parent-teacher meeting came around, Mrs. Malhotra was already convinced I was trouble.

My world at school grew darker. False rumors spread that I was dating girls I had never even spoken to. Someone forged my email and tied it to fake IDs. My name was even scrawled on the washroom walls like a warning. But I kept my head held high. In my heart, I knew the truth, no matter how buried, would eventually find a way to come out.