The Girl in the Red Hoodie

Start writing..It was a Wednesday — the kind of day that didn’t ask for much. The sky hung low, the kind of overcast that blurs the city into greys and shadows. I was sitting at the edge of the bus terminal with my hoodie up, headphones in, no music playing. Just silence. Heavy, buzzing silence.

I hadn’t planned to be there. I had places to be, people expecting me. But something about the movement of strangers and the mechanical rhythm of buses arriving and leaving felt oddly comforting. Like the world was going somewhere, even if I wasn’t.

That’s when I noticed her.
The girl in the red hoodie.

She stood out like a wound against the faded concrete and cold metal benches. Her hoodie was oversized, the sleeves swallowing her hands. She had scuffed sneakers and a sagging backpack, but it wasn’t her clothes that held my gaze. It was the way she stood — still, tense, like her body was present but her spirit had wandered off miles ago.

She stared at the departure board, her lips moving like she was reciting names she wasn’t sure belonged to her.

Something about her pulled at me. Not in the romantic way — not the way movies write about these moments. No. This was different. She looked like someone who had forgotten how to breathe.

I watched as she walked past three empty benches and sat down next to me.

I felt her presence before she even said a word. A soft gravity, like sadness with a heartbeat.

And then, without turning to look at me, she said quietly, “Do you ever feel like you’re disappearing?”

Her voice was hoarse, not from crying but from silence — the kind that grows when you haven’t spoken your truth in too long.

I didn’t answer right away. I turned my head to study her face. Young, maybe seventeen. Eyes rimmed red, but dry. Tired in the way that doesn't come from lack of sleep but from carrying too much of something invisible.

“I think everyone does, at some point,” I said. “But most people are too afraid to admit it.”

She nodded. “I woke up this morning and didn’t recognize myself. Like I was wearing someone else’s skin.”

There was a long pause.

“I used to be so loud,” she said, her voice almost a whisper now. “You know? I used to take up space. I used to laugh at everything. Now I flinch when my phone rings.”

She dug into her backpack and pulled out an old, worn Polaroid. She stared at it for a moment before holding it out.

It was her — younger, brighter, smiling with her arm around another girl, maybe a sister or best friend. Same red hoodie, but everything else looked different. Her face, her eyes, her posture. She looked alive in a way she didn’t anymore.

“That’s who I used to be,” she said. “I carry her in my pocket, hoping one day I’ll find my way back.”

I stared at the photo, then back at her.

“She’s still in there,” I said. “She’s just waiting for you to remember how to call her name.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t bother to wipe it away.

“I skipped school today. I walked for two hours with no destination. I ended up here. I don’t even know why.”

“Maybe you just needed to be seen,” I said. “Sometimes the body takes you to the places your soul needs most.”

She let out a quiet, broken laugh. “That sounds like something a therapist would say.”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “But they’d charge you $200 for it.”

We both laughed, softly. Just for a moment, the weight in the air lifted.

She pulled her hoodie tighter around her and looked out toward the buses.

“My mom thinks I’m at school. My teachers probably think I’m just lazy. My friends… well, I’m not even sure I have those anymore. I’m tired of pretending I’m okay. Tired of people telling me to be strong. I don’t want to be strong. I want to be held.”

The honesty in her voice cracked something open in me. I remembered being her. Different details, different pain, but the same feeling — being young and lost in a world that expected you to have it all figured out.

“You don’t have to be strong today,” I said. “You don’t even have to be okay. You just have to be here. Breathing is enough.”

She looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time. Her eyes were full of unspoken things — pain, hope, fear, a quiet gratitude.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied. “Sometimes strangers are the safest place.”

She stood up slowly, tucked the photo back into her hoodie pocket, and slung her bag over one shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said. “For seeing me.”

Then she turned and walked away, fading into the blur of the crowd, the red hoodie the last thing I saw before she disappeared completely.


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I don’t know where she went. I don’t know if she ever found her way back to the girl in the photo. But I think about her often — on quiet mornings, in crowded places, in the pauses between conversations.

And sometimes, when I feel myself slipping into silence, I remember her words. And I breathe a little deeper.

Because sometimes, that’s all it takes.