The Girl Who Wasn’t in the Yearbook

I was seventeen when I noticed the girl in the back row.

It was during 6th period study hall. I had been flipping through last year’s yearbook, half-bored and half-curious. Everyone always looked weird in yearbooks—like they were trying too hard to look like themselves.

Then I saw her.

Page 132. Class 11-B.

Back row. Third from the right.

I didn’t recognize her. Pale, thin face. Long dark hair. That look—the kind where someone seems half-asleep and halfway somewhere else.

Her name read: “Elaine Morris.”

Except—I’d never heard of an Elaine Morris. And our class only had about 70 students.

I went around the room, asking a few people near me casually:

“Hey, do you remember this girl?”

They squinted, shrugged.

“Must’ve moved away.”

“Maybe a transfer who left early?”

“I don’t think she was in any of my classes.”

But something about her stuck.

That night I went through old photos. Prom. Football games. Theater. Club day. She wasn’t in any of them. Not even the big group shots where everyone’s face was mashed into the frame.

I even messaged Jessie, who was on the yearbook committee last year.

me: hey weird q – who’s Elaine Morris?

jessie: ???

me: page 132

jessie: dude there’s no one by that name in the yearbook lol

me: yeah there is. last row.

[Photo attached]

jessie: bro. that row only has 4 ppl. ur pic looks edited. weird.

Edited?

I went back to the book. Elaine was still there.

The next day, I took the yearbook to Mr. Phelps, the vice principal. He was the kind of guy who always acted busy but liked gossip.

I showed him the photo.

His face changed.

He looked at it for a while. Quiet. Then he said, “Can I keep this for a bit?”

Later that week, he called me into his office. The book sat closed on his desk.

“I checked records,” he said. “There was no student named Elaine Morris at this school. Ever.”

I nodded slowly.

“I think maybe… you're under a lot of pressure,” he added. “College applications. Future stuff. Our brains do weird things when we're overwhelmed.”

I left without saying anything.

That night, I dreamed about her.

She sat in the cafeteria alone, peeling the label off a water bottle. Her name tag said Elaine. I tried to ask her why no one remembered her. She just looked up and said, “I was quiet. That’s all.”

After that, I saw her everywhere. Always at the edge of crowds. In blurred photos. Reflections. My phone camera once glitched and showed her standing behind me.

She never moved.

Always just… there.

One day I opened the yearbook again.

Her face was gone.

But someone had underlined a quote in pen just below the class photo:

“Sometimes the quietest people leave the loudest echoes.”

No one believed me, of course. I eventually stopped bringing it up.

But sometimes, in the library or during assemblies, I feel someone sit beside me when the chair doesn’t move. Or I see a water bottle with the label half-peeled.

And I remember Elaine Morris—the girl who wasn’t in the yearbook.

But should’ve been.