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.

"Are you headed to the cafeteria?" I heard Cain say from behind me. It only took a few more seconds before he and Zane were next to me.

"I think I'll go for a smoke first." I told him. I couldn't help but notice the way that Cain's eyes lit up when I said just a few words to him. I wanted to tell him that they shouldn't. My words are nothing special.

"You want company?" Cain asked me, his voice eager like there's nothing he could want more than accompanying me outside and sitting on the cold, dirty asphalt.

"I, uh..." I started out, grasping for the polite way to say no.

"It's no trouble." He hurried out.

"I guess." I mumbled.

"I'll come too." Zane added, staring at me in the eyes like he was daring me to protest. I couldn't help the small flick of my eyes to the ceiling at his words. I also couldn't help but notice the slight fall of Cain's smile.

"Mr. Hastings! Cain!" A authoritative voice called from the classroom we were walking by. "In here this instant."

Cain looked hesitantly between me and the teacher who was beckoning him, like he was actually deciding what his course of action would be. Though we both knew there was only one option.

"It's fine." I said politely as I helped him make said decision, and he looked at me wishfully before hurrying into the room.

"Guess you're off the hook." I said to Zane, who had assumed Cain's position in walking beside me.

"It's fine. I don't mind coming with you." Zane said casually.

"You're going to come outside and just watch me? Or did you forget you don't smoke." I said as we approached my locker. As I swirled the lock in the sequence of my combination and swung the door open, I heard Zane reply, but I couldn't make out his words because I was laser focused on something else. A plain white, sealed envelope was resting on the top of my piled textbooks.

I simply stared at it for a minute before grabbing it with my hands, letting the book I was holding fall into the bottom of my locker with a crash. I steadied it closely, noting the white envelope was untouched. No name, no address, nothing. No hints of it's contents and no hints of it's sender. I felt the distant feeling of panic creep back into my bloodstream, so I hurriedly shoved the letter into my purse and beelined for the exit.

I was mad that my impenetrable drug induced calm had been cracked by something as simple as a letter. I ripped out a cigarette once I had reached my secluded spot, hoping that the nicotine would be enough to take the edge off.

"If you wanted to ditch me, I suggest going to a spot you don't normally go to." Zane's voice reached my eardrums and I suddenly remembered he had been beside me that whole time.

"How do you know what spot I normally go to?" I asked him as he slid down the wall beside me.

Zane simply shrugged, and I noticed the faint pink that tinted his cheeks at my words. I don't know what I said to make that happen, but then I noticed him eyeing my cigarette with a hesitant look in his eye.

"How long ago did you quit?" I knew the look. It was the same look I had when I watched someone smoke the times I had tried to quit. I never lasted more than a week, so eventually I just gave up.

"A year and a half. The same time I transferred here." He replied, following the cigarette's path through the air as it finally met my lips. He stared for only a half a second longer before breaking the line of sight.

I nodded, unsure what to say. Something about conversation with Zane was far more emotionally exhausting than conversation with the others.

"Did you get my playlist?" He asked me, his voice just a misstep away from the calm collected tone he usually held.

"Yeah." I hummed out as I flicked the ash onto the ground with my thumb.

"What did you think?"

I was silent for a moment as I gathered my thoughts. "Honestly?"

He raised his eyebrow in surprise. "You answering my questions honestly is all I hope for."

I felt my face scrunch in contemplation of his words. That's all he hopes for? I wonder why you would hope for something you knew would never happen.

"I wonder if those girls exist." I told him.

He looked confused at my words, and I couldn't blame him. "What girls?"

"The girl they sing about. Are they real?" I continued, but Zane looked as lost as ever. "I find it hard to believe the girls they sing about exist in real life."

"Why do you find that hard to believe?" Zane tilted his head at me.

"Guys don't see girls like that. They don't notice the things they sing about." I explained, as the last of my cigarette burned into the filter. Though I now had no reason to stay here, I didn't move.

"You're wrong. They do." Zane told me, and I wanted him to look somewhere else besides my face.

I bobbed my head at his words. "Maybe I'm just not that girl then." I laughed quietly. "The kind of girl a guy writes a song about."

"You're exactly that kind of girl, Seren." Zane replied quickly.

***

AN: