See Me

19

My dad had barely blinked at the much less than modest outfit I came down the stairs in today. Sometimes I wondered if he really saw me.

I mean clearly he saw me, in the literal sense. Though I had wondered in my short lifetime many times how it would feel to be invisible, I knew I was the farthest thing from it. I was destined to be seen, destined to be noticed.

But did anyone see me, not just the polished flesh on my body? I wondered that about everyone, lately.

He was driving me to school as he did most mornings. And as he did most mornings, he was droning on about his life at the office, and not bothering to ask me a single thing. He didn't ask where I was last night, he didn't ask why I slept on his couch again, and he didn't ask me why my eyes were glazed over and my head kept falling to the side.

I was scrolling through my text messages. Since I unblocked everyone that Jax had blocked, my phone was back to normal. There was Benji and Tyler who never took my nonexistent responses as a hint to leave me alone. There was Olivia and Trinity who felt the need to keep me in the loop with all of the school gossip.

My stomach slightly lurched with an unfamiliar feeling when I noticed I had a text from Zane. I couldn't pinpoint the slight emotion that ran through me, but it felt a little like intrigue. It was distant, and faint. Like a single drop into the ocean, small enough that you might miss it, but causing a ripple nonetheless.

Sent at almost two in the morning, Zane had sent me a link to a Spotify playlist. I opened the link to find a series of songs with beautiful names, titled simply Seren.

I played the first song, slipping the buds of my headphones in my ears and wondering if Zane realized he sent me the digital age version of a mixtape.

By the time my dad had dropped me off at school and gestured farewell in the simple flick of his fingers and the mouthing of the word bye so he didn't interrupt his phone call, I had noticed a theme in the music Zane had sent me. They were all sad male voices noticing every detail about a beautiful girl.

I wondered if they were real, and not poetry written just for the sake of generating dollar signs. It was a foreign concept to me; the idea of a man noticing the way a woman's eyes sparkled and not just the way her tits looked.

School was easier today, no doubt due to the help of my sidekick Ativan. It made me feel like a financially blessed citizen looking down at the chaos of a dystopian future from my glass walled penthouse. I could see the danger. I knew the danger was present. But I didn't care.

"You look better today, Seren." I looked over to find Cain sitting beside me, again. Did he sit next to me in all my classes?

"I feel good today." I smiled out at him. I barely took in his returning smile before I noticed Zane sat beside him. Zane wasn't smiling at me like Cain was. Zane was looking at me in the way that Zane always looks at me, like he knew I was lying.

"Zane." I smiled at him, and though I noticed he looked lighter than he had last night, his eyes were still searching my face. As they always did. It felt like a moment frozen in time. Zane looking for all the things I wasn't telling him, and me hoping like fuck he didn't realize I was high out of my mind. Again.

The moment the bell rang I tried to put as much distance between Zane and I as possible. I didn't want his disappointment again. I didn't want his lecturing. If these pills made me feel like a human again, then why can't I take them?

I didn't get far before crashing into the crowds of students exiting their classes. I could try and weave my way through them, but the thought of all those bodies so close to mine was claustrophobia inducing,  even in my current mind state.