The 24-hour clock perched among the clutter of things on her table read "00:31",and the dark lump of her snoring sister sleeping beside her served as testimony to how late it was.But it was not so late to Malaa.The afternoon was still fresh in her mind,driving away any thought of draping the blanket higher up and shutting her eyes fringed with the darkest of lashes so as to lull herself to sleep.Curling her fingers into two frail,shaking fists,she drew them up to her face to dig the heels of her palms into her eyes.Wetness,wetness smeared the deep lines that ran along her palm.She was crying?Now,after all had happened?But she was,and nothing would change that.Least of all her being ignored for the umpteenth time at school,being thrown derisive looks but not straight-out bullied and looking through a haze of waiting tears and from afar the sight of the other people in school wreathed in silken laughter and mirth.Nothing would or could change the fact that she was-she never thought she would call herself this-a...a loser.She lost at the game of surviving middle school,she was that much of an idiot.It was so not...