The tardy bell rang just as I parked my bike at the rack next to the Westwood High School sign. I knelt down to lock my bike in place, letting out a sigh of frustration.

I rolled my eyes and marched into the front office. The double door entrance to the rest of campus was now closed.

“Good morning,” I said to the secretary.

She hardly looked up. “Name?”

“Daniela Reyes.”

Her nails clicked at her keyboard. “Reason for being tardy this morning?”

“Uh,” I began. What was I supposed to say? “I missed my ride.”

“Overslept. Okay, here you go.” She passed me a tardy slip over the tall counter separating us.

I stared at her for a second, shocked, but she was already back staring at her computer screen.

A small part of me wanted to say something, but I settled for pursing my lips before leaving through the door that led to the main hallway.

Slept in? I wish.

I took my sweet time getting to my locker. I was already late anyway. No need to rush through grabbing my books.

The lesson had already started when I walked into math class.

“Good of you to join us, Ms. Reyes,” Mr. Nguyen said, hardly glancing my way as he worked out a problem on the board.

A few people turned to look at me before they went back to taking notes or sleeping.

For the second time this month, I left the tardy slip on his desk and made my way to my seat in the back of the classroom. Avoiding the stares of other students, I bent over my backpack and turned my phone to silent, then pulled out my math notebook. I flipped to a blank page and started copying examples from the whiteboard.

Halfway through the third one, Mr. Nguyen began erasing everything.

Great. I scanned the rows of desks but didn’t know who to ask for notes. None of the few friends I had were in this class. Courtney sat across the room, but I wasn’t about to ask her now. She got so annoyed if I spoke to her in school. If it were up to her, nobody would know we were stepsisters.

Maybe she’d let me borrow her notes at home if I caught her in the right mood.

“Please complete the worksheet by the end of class.” Mr. Nguyen went to each row, passing back a stack of papers. “This will count as a quiz grade.”

Groans and sighs filled the air.

A pop quiz on something we just learned? Mr. Nguyen was the worst. And he was the kind of teacher who would laugh in my face if I asked him to give me the quiz tomorrow since I missed the lesson.

I scanned the room. Everyone was already head down, pencil to paper. Mr. Nguyen said we could use our notes, but I was missing about half of them. The examples were always the most helpful part, and I hadn’t had a chance to write more than a couple down.

Mr. Nguyen sat at his desk, flipping through a large stack of papers. He looked up and met my eyes. I shifted my gaze down and got to work.

With a minute left in class, Mr. Nguyen got up and asked everyone to pass their quizzes up the row so he could collect them.

The guy in front of me groaned. “Well, pretty sure I bombed that.” He ran his fingers through his light brown, curly hair.

I couldn’t remember his name, only that he was a senior—a year ahead of me. I snuck a peek at his notes as I handed him my quiz. He had half the notes I did, and they were covered in drool. Not to mention they were illegible.

I sat back in my seat, not sure how I did. I’d be happy if I earned a B. Math was my strong suit, but the questions Mr. Nguyen put on his pop quizzes were always harder than the examples he did with the class.

Thankfully, my next couple of classes went a lot better than math. No quizzes. Just notes and worksheets. Lunch was my favorite part of the day, other than computer class, but I didn’t have that until last hour.

Courtney and Lindsay shared my same lunch period, but they always hung out with their usual group of cheerleader and jock friends. They talked loudly and joked around, often at someone else’s expense.

I walked as far away from them as I could and sat down at an empty table on the opposite side of the cafeteria. I preferred to eat lunch solo and talk to my best friend. He didn’t go to this school, but his lunch time was around mine, so I chewed on my cardboard pizza and waited for my phone to buzz.

I scrolled through some of my social feeds. My phone went off with a notification. It was him.

None of the teachers were around, but I double-checked before focusing solely on his message.

Baller929: Hey :)

I smiled. Lunch was our time to catch up on each other’s day.

He used to have a different username, Baller23, but he’d changed it not long ago, and he wouldn’t tell me why. I still nagged him about it from time to time, wondering about the significance of 929, but it was useless.

TheRealCinderella: So is it the number on your basketball jersey this year?

He sent an eye-roll emoji.

Baller929: Yeah, that’s it. Oh wait. Jerseys only have two-digit numbers. Try again, haha.

TheRealCinderella: Oh lol. I will guess eventually, you know!

Baller929: We’ll see ;)

Then he sent a basketball emoji. Which he did like ten thousand times a day. Basketball was his thing.

Sports, clearly, were not my thing.

I sent back a computer emoji to signify my geekiness. I was by no means a hacker or computer expert or anything like that, but I knew more than most people in the school. Than a lot of the teachers. I was that girl most teachers asked for help when it came to technology, like hooking up their laptops to their classroom flat screens. Or checking email on their phones.

My dad used to work with computers, so I’d learned my way around them pretty young. He was a programmer, and I used to sit on his lap and watch him code.

Baller929: So are you ever going to tell me who you really are, Cinderella? Or is that your real name?

I stared at that text.

He asked me this question when we first met online and started talking last year, but I never could bring myself to tell him who I really was.

We knew almost everything about each other except our real names. We were both in eleventh grade. He was on the varsity basketball team at his school.

Meanwhile, I was a complete nobody at mine.

Which was why I didn’t want to tell him the truth about who I was. If he looked me up online—if he even saw my picture—he’d stop talking to me in a heartbeat.

I mean, I had classes with some of the varsity basketball players here. They were tall, handsome, and the most popular guys in school. Most of them thought they were God’s gift to us average high schoolers and wouldn’t look twice at anyone who wasn’t as high as them on the totem pole. Cheerleaders, mainly.

I didn’t really know any of the jocks, and of course, they didn’t know I even existed. But I knew how things worked around here. People like me weren’t friends with guys like them.

I wondered if Baller929 was like that. Was he nice in real life? Or just to me? Did he think I was popular and just as good-looking as Lindsay and Courtney?

I texted him back.

TheRealCinderella: Have you ever met anyone who was actually named Cinderella? No, that’s not really my name. LOL.

Baller929: Does it start with a C then? And if I did ever meet a girl actually named Cinderella, I’d go ballistic because I’d know it had to be you :)

TheRealCinderella: :)

TheRealCinderella: Nope. Not a C.

Baller929: Okay then… *googling top 1000 girl names*

Baller929: Is it Isabella?

Baller929: Maria?

Baller929: Hannah?

Baller929: Emma?

Baller929: This could go for a while, you know? Maybe you should just give up now and tell me :)

TheRealCinderella: Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Why the sudden interest in my identity? Is the mystery driving you insane?

Baller929: Because I’d like to know the name of the girl I talk to every day…the one who knows pretty much everything about me.

His words stopped my heart in its tracks.

What was that supposed to mean? That was the thing about chatting online. I could be reading something completely different into all of this than he meant.

Baller929: What school do you go to then? Maybe it turns out we go to rival schools or something :) Maybe you’ve even seen me play and never realized it.

TheRealCinderella: I seriously doubt that. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a basketball game.

He sent a horrified emoji.

Baller929: How are we friends???

That’s a good question, I wanted to say. Instead…

TheRealCinderella: You started talking to me, remember?

It was true. We first met on an online student forum created by the state, back in the fall of sophomore year. The forum was for students to ask for help on homework, college apps, and that kind of thing. The idea was that we all studied the same curriculum and shared the same resources, so there were student volunteers, teachers, and counselors who answered questions and were there for support.

As a National Honor Society member, I had volunteer hours to complete. Answering homework questions and tutoring other students online was the easiest thing for me to do since I wouldn’t have to ask my stepmom or stepsisters for a ride.

Sophia was always adamant that she was too busy, and Courtney and Lindsay refused to give me a ride except on the rare occasion that it was a convenience to them, except for school in the mornings.

My first day volunteering, I saw that Baller23 had posted a math question about solving a right triangle. The kind where you find missing side lengths. We’d just studied that in class, so I replied.

Then he posted another question. And another. It must have been all the questions on his homework.

I walked him through every one until it was time for dinner, and I made sure he hadn’t posted another one afterward.

The next day, he’d sent me a private chat, thanking me. According to him, I’d saved his butt from getting benched at the first game of the season due to a failing geometry grade. He’d aced the quiz the next day. And the homework.

I tutored him the whole year, and we became friends. We talked almost every day.

First, it was math. Then it was his life. He faced a lot of pressure from his parents and his basketball coach. They all had big dreams for him, and all he ever did was practice or play basketball.

Then he started asking about me.

He quickly became my go-to friend, the one I went to when I had a bad day. He knew about my stepsisters, who I referred to as Anastasia and Drizella, just like in the original Disney movie. He knew about my stepmom too. And my dad. How much I missed him.

My phone buzzed again.

Baller929: True… if I told you the reason I changed my username, then would you tell me your real name? Or at least where you go to school? :)

I thought about that, looking up from my phone.

The rest of my class was getting up to leave, and I had to do the same.

I sent one last message before putting my phone away.

TheRealCinderella: I’ll think about it :)

Would I have the courage to finally to tell him who I was?

I wasn’t so sure. He was the only good thing I had in my life right now, and I couldn’t risk losing the last speck of light in my backward fairytale life.