The Clicker
First day of junior year, and it’s there. That click. Like a cricket trapped in a shoebox—soft, insistent, impossible to ignore once you know it’s there. A sound that doesn’t belong, slicing through the static of another mind-numbing lecture.
Mrs. Hillman’s droning about cell mitosis, her voice like wet paint drying on a humid day, and somewhere between prophase and metaphase: click.
It’s not loud. Just sharp enough to carve a tiny fissure in the monotony. A noise so precise, so deliberate, it feels surgical. A scalpel slicing through the sleepy hum of the projector, through the synchronized sighs of thirty bored teenagers.
Everyone hears it. But no one reacts. That’s the thing about high school—you learn to ignore the weird stuff, the tiny ripples in the unspoken code of normality. Except me. My eyes snap to her. The girl in the second row.
Bright red hair, a color that doesn’t whisper but shouts. Freckles scattered across her cheeks, like constellations painted on her skin. The kind of freckles she probably spent years hating, calling them "blemishes" when everyone else saw stars.
Her name’s Ellie. I know this because I know things. Not in a stalker way, just in a “quiet observer of chaos” kind of way. She’s got this plastic clicker in her hand, the kind you’d use to train a dog. A stupid little thing, gray and utilitarian, with a button that snaps under her thumb.
She clicks it every time she’s happy.
Click.
A sound so small it shouldn’t matter, but it does. It worms its way into the day, into your brain. Like a tally mark carved into prison walls. She doesn’t notice me watching, but I notice everything. The way her lips curl into this tight, secret smile after each click. Like she’s savoring something invisible. The way her thumb moves, deliberate and careful, as if every press of that cheap plastic button is a sacred act. A prayer whispered to something no one else believes in.
Most people would think it’s cute. Wholesome. The kind of thing that would make a teacher smile and say, “Ellie, what’s that clicker for?” and then beam when she explains it. It’s easy to romanticize stuff like this, to frame it in glitter and pastels. A girl training herself to be happy.
But I’m not most people. I’m the person who pulls threads to see how they unravel. I hear that click and think: Why would anyone need to train themselves to be happy?
There’s something unnerving about it. Like finding out someone wears an oxygen mask because they’re allergic to air. It’s not cute—it’s survival. And survival isn’t romantic. It’s desperate. Necessary.
But I don’t say anything. I just sit there, listening to the clicks, counting them like miles on a treadmill, and wondering what it feels like to have to work this hard just to notice the good stuff.