Lara Maples took first place in the years 10/11/12 story category of the Wangaratta Young Writers Award with this piece. The competition is run annually by the Rotary Club of Appin Park Wangaratta and the Rotary Club of Wangaratta, and is supported by the Wangaratta Library.

You don't remember when the heaviness began. Maybe it was always there, a shadow pressed against your ribs, whispering that you were too much and not enough all at once. You learned how to smile so no one would notice, how to keep moving so the silence wouldn't catch you. But at night, when everything stilled, the emptiness rose like water, and you felt yourself drowning in a place no one else could see.

Loneliness was no longer a passing feeling - it was a companion. It sat beside you at the table, walked behind you down the hall, curled up with you at night. It whispered lies in your ear: You don't belong. You will never belong. You're too damaged to be wanted.

Anxiety holds you back, like a heaving iron chain, dragging you down with every breath, heavy and unrelenting, making even the smallest steps feel impossible.

You tried to smile, but it felt like wearing a mask carved from stone. You tried to hope, but hope slipped through your fingers like water, leaving your hands empty. You tried to pray, but your words fell flat against the ceiling, unanswered and unheard.

Then one day, an invitation came-youth camp. You almost laughed. As if a weekend away could undo years of ache. As if songs and games and strangers could teach you how to breathe again. You told yourself it wasn't for people like you - the broken ones, the lost ones, the ones already sure they don't belong. But something inside you stirred-a fragile flicker, a voice softer than despair: what if?

The first night was the most challenging. Everyone seemed to laugh like they already knew the language of joy, while you stood to the side, feeling like a ghost in your own body. But then a leader noticed you. Noticed the way your eyes kept falling to the floor. Noticed that you didn't sing, not because you didn't care, but because you were afraid your voice didn't matter.

Their eyes rested on you, not with pity, but with something gentler, steadier, as if they saw not just who you were but who you could become. They sat beside you, and in the quiet they told you: You are loved exactly as you are. You don't have to fix yourself first.

The words felt foreign, like a language you had never spoken but desperately wanted to learn. You didn't believe them-not yet-but you wanted to. And wanting was enough to keep you coming back.

When camp ended, the leader encouraged you to try a youth group. Again, you almost said no. Again, the chain of anxiety tried to pull you under. Again, the voice of doubt hissed: You won't fit in. You'll never fit in. But another voice pushed back-soft but steady: Try. Just try. Just try.

So you did.

The first Friday night, you stepped into a room glowing with string lights and laughter. Fear wrapped around you like a thick blanket of smoke. You braced yourself for the familiar sting of being on the outside.

But it didn't come. Something had shifted. Someone smiled. There were people who looked you in the eye when you spoke. People who remembered your name the next week. People who prayed for you, sang with you, sat beside you when you couldn't hold yourself up anymore. Slowly, the darkness loosened its grip.

You were no longer invisible.

Week after week, the walls you had built began to crack. Hope, once a stranger, became a guest; eventually, it moved in. You learned that community isn't about pretending everything is fine. It's about being seen when you're not-fine, and still being chosen.

And slowly, you began to believe that maybe God hadn't abandoned you after all. Maybe God wasn't waiting for a better version of you to show up-He was already reaching for you in the ruins.

And so the story shifted. You, who once felt lost, now walked with others who called your name. You, who once thought broken was the end, now knew it was only the beginning. The shadow is still there some days, but it doesn't own you anymore.

Because here, you found something worth holding onto: a community that sees you, accepts you, and loves you.

Here you found the one thing you thought you had lost forever: Hope.