The Line That Wasn’t There

Lexile: 1170 | Grade: 10

Passage

No one noticed when Mina paused outside the classroom. The hallway moved around her—fast, loud, ordinary. She stood still, watching the tiled floor beneath her shoes. There was no actual line there. But it felt like one. A thin invisible thread separating before and after.

Today was the day she was supposed to speak. A presentation. Group grades. Expectations. The kind of thing that made her stomach tighten before her mind even caught up.

She had practiced. Enough to memorize the words, if not believe them. But standing here, with her hand on the doorframe, she wasn’t sure she could cross that line.

It wasn’t about fear, exactly. It was about what followed. The voice crack. The half-smile from the corner of the room. The idea that a stumble could erase all the effort she had built in private. That she could be judged for the moment and not the journey.

But then she remembered something her older sister had once said, during a different hard moment: *“You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to move anyway.”*

So Mina stepped forward. The world didn’t shift. The floor didn’t glow. But something quiet in her did. Something unmeasurable but real. A kind of strength that only shows up when you're unsure and go anyway.

She walked into the room. Still nervous. Still unsure. But past the line that wasn’t there—and never had been.