Surviving Cibseption

Discovery

Annabelle Chastain was a very popular girl.

She was friends with Jessica now, and they reveled in their appearances. Annabelle now loved to look in the mirror. She now loved to talk to people, specifically boys, and she was in Theater. She was always in a major part in a play. Always. That was just how it was.

She was no longer a maladroit, trying to glide through high school unnoticed. She was no longer invisible. She was in the limelight.

She dyed her hair a darker brunette and wore makeup now. She loved her large array of powders and lipsticks. She would wake up early and sit at her desk, prop up a mirror and become beautiful.

She loved her eye brows, which were perfectly arched. She loved her lips, which she now applied lipstick to. She felt beautiful because of the artificial mask. She felt more secure.

She no longer went to her aunts or ate in the stall during lunch. She didn't like going into that bathroom at all, now. She would eat lunch with the cool kids at a coffee shop across town. Two varsity football players drove her and Jessica there every day that they could. Jessica always got the same thing, but Annabelle liked to broaden her horizons. She's now tried thirty two of the fifty items on the menu. The majority are tea lattes. Her favorite is probably the vanilla and almond cremé blend.

One day in mid autumn, the members of the coffee shop commission were making their way back to school in Gerat Culberson's grey Honda accord. Jessica was flirting with him, caressing his blonde locks that were damp from rain. He was obviously enjoying it.

Annabelle and the other football player, Zachary, sat in the back seats in silence. After a few minutes of staring out the window aimlessly, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her WeHeartIt blog. She admired her thumbnail, which was pink and perfectly polished, as she scrolled on and on.

It was the usual Chanel or ootd post, which she was starting to get bored of. She wanted something new and exciting. Something unknown.

She then saw a black and white picture of a young man. He had a thin face, high cheekbones and skin that was unbelievably smooth looking. His hair was a fluffy mop atop his head, that looked so... touchable.

She spent a few moments admiring the picture of the guy, when she saw from her peripheral vision that her back seat buddy was interested in what she was looking that.

"Ohh, who's that?" His gravelly voice interrupted Jessica's giggles from the front of the speeding car.

Annabelle's intense concentration was broken as she looked up, her eyes staying on the screen for just one more moment before meeting Zach's gaze.

"O-oh. I dunno, just some hot guy on my blog." She laughed as she hearted the picture, so she could look at it later.

Zach whistled, "I'd tap that."

·~·~·~·~·

During fifth period, in her history class, her teacher was droning about some French guy in a feather hat. He thought he was funny, cracking lame jokes then laughing at them. He was bald and had a high voice that got loud at random times. That bothered Annabelle. So, after she talked to a guy sitting next to her in the back row of the class, she got out her phone and admired the picture of the model man again.

She then noticed the caption.
Clayton James is baee ♥♡

Clayton James. The name stuck with her.

She googled it whilst Mr. Dickenson laughed his wheezing laugh to a silent class.

Her eyes widened as she realized he was a youtuber. She was even more interested at this point, and assumed that he was famous. He probably had at least a million subscribers on his channel. Maybe more.

Her heart sunk a little at the thought of him being unattainably famous, but what else could she suspect? He was already getting a hundred plus hearts on WeHeartIt.

Annabelle grinned to herself as she read that he only had 96,000 subscribers. That's a "small" community. Jackpot. That's just what she was looking for.

She found a link to his facebook and liked his page, then opened her messages.

She stared at the Write a message text inside the box for a minute, then scrolled up and down four times in a compulsive way. What should she say? She was nervous, that much was obvious. She decided to go for it.
Hey, I really like your videos.

That would be a lie. She'd never seen a single one. She decided to go for a different approach. Deleting the previous message, she replaced it with Could you befriend me and then maybe we can go on from there o- she typed it quickly and deleted it just as fast.
Think, Annabelle, you twat.

She wasn't sure why she thought of twat. She pursed her lips in anxiety and plugged in her headphones in a seemingly ingonito fashion. Her teacher didn't notice, for he was writing things in the board.

She watched a music cover of his, he some song called Amnesia.

His voice made her melt. Her left leg shook a little under the desk and she bit timidly at the end of her thumbnail. Annabelle knew just what she would say now.

Exiting the YouTube app, she opened messenger and continued here she left off. Which was nothing.
Hey Cib, she deleted Cib.
Hey, I really like your videos. Your Amnesia cover was really great, too. You have an amazing voice :3

She sent it and twiddled with the end of her braid anxiously. Would he ever see her message?