Chapter 392: Invisible
The party was Aria’s idea.
She’d been talking about it for weeks, some off-campus house party thrown by seniors, the kind of event that promised cheap beer and crowded rooms and music loud enough to feel in your chest.
I had no interest in going. Parties were exhausting, full of social calculations and forced interactions that required too much energy to maintain.
But Aria wanted me there.
"Come on," she’d said, sprawled across my dorm bed while I pretended to study. "You can’t spend every Friday night in this room. Live a little."
"I am living."
"You’re existing. There’s a difference." She rolled onto her stomach, chin propped on her hands. "Please? I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll buy you boba after. The expensive one."
I’d looked at her then, at the way her eyes went soft when she asked me for things, like my answer actually mattered to her. Like I mattered.
"Fine."
Her whole face lit up. "Really?"
"One hour. That’s it."
"Deal!" She’d launched herself off the bed to hug me, and I’d stood there stiffly, not quite sure what to do with my hands.
That was three days ago.
Now we were here, standing on the porch of a house that vibrated with bass, and I was already regretting my decision.
"Ready?" Aria grinned at me, adjusting the crop top she’d borrowed from someone down our hall.
I wasn’t ready. But I nodded anyway.
The moment we walked through the door, it started.
"Aria! Oh my god, you came!" A girl I vaguely recognized from our English class materialized out of the crowd, pulling Aria into a hug. Then another person, and another, until Aria was surrounded by a small crowd of people who all seemed to know her, all seemed to have been waiting for her arrival.
I stood next to her, one step back, and watched it happen.
A guy with a backwards cap offered her a drink. Someone else asked if she’d heard about the drama in the English department.
A girl with blue hair wanted to know if Aria was still seeing that senior from last month.
Everyone talked over each other, competing for her attention, and Aria just laughed and kept up with all of them somehow, her energy never flagging.
I might as well have been furniture.
No one looked at me. No one asked my name. When I tried to add something to the conversation, some comment about the English drama, my voice got swallowed by someone else’s louder observation, and no one noticed I’d spoken at all.
A girl in red bumped into me, muttered a distracted "sorry" without looking. I said nothing. I just watched. Aria had that rare kind of warmth that made people forget their manners and their limits.
This is what it was always like.
She pulled people into her orbit without trying, and I became the shadow at the edge of her light. Present but invisible. There but not seen.
After twenty minutes, I found a corner near the kitchen and stayed there, nursing a beer I didn’t want, watching.
I continued watching as someone approached her around eleven.
Tall guy, athletic build, the kind of face that probably got him everything he wanted. He’d been circling her for the past hour, working his way closer through the crowd until he finally made contact. His hand landed on her lower back, familiar, presumptuous.
Aria’s spine went rigid.
"Hey beautiful." His voice carried even over the music. "You look lonely. Let me fix that."
"I’m not lonely." Aria’s tone had gone flat. Dangerous. "And you should move your hand."
"Come on, don’t be like that." He leaned in closer, and I could see his fingers pressing into her side. "I just want to talk."
"No, you don’t." Aria turned to face him fully, and something in her expression made him take a half-step back. "You want to put your hands on someone who doesn’t want them there. That’s different."
"Jesus, relax—"
"Get the fuck away from me."
Her voice cut through the noise like a blade. People nearby stopped talking, turned to watch.
The guy’s face flushed red, embarrassment turning quickly to anger.
"Fucking slut," he muttered, but he backed away, hands raised in mock surrender.
His friends were watching from across the room. One of them laughed. "Damn, dude. She’s savage."
"For real though," another one added. "I like that. She’s got fire."
They were looking at her differently now. Not deterred. Intrigued. Like her rejection had made her more interesting instead of less.
A girl nearby whispered to her friend: "She’s so real. Like, she doesn’t take shit from anyone."
And just like that, Aria had become more magnetic. More interesting to them. Even her anger made her desirable.
I felt it then, that subtle, twisting ache beneath my ribs. Not jealousy exactly. Not yet. Something quieter. Colder.
I stood there, watching her glow. Watching people orbit her like she was the sun.
And I was just... shadow. The shape beside her that no one ever really saw.
Every laugh she gave, every glance that wasn’t for me, felt like a thread pulling further away from my grasp. The room felt smaller, the air too hot, the music pounding in my skull like a pulse I couldn’t match.
I wondered what it would be like, to be her.
I watched her for the rest of the night.
I thought about her skin. How smooth it looked, how golden under the party lights. I thought about what it would be like to peel it back, strip by strip, and wrap it around myself like a coat. Would they see me then?
Would I finally become the thing they couldn’t look away from?
The thought should have disturbed me. Back then, thoughts like that had been a sign I was "regressing," that I needed my medication adjusted.
But this felt different. Clearer. Like I was finally being honest with myself about what I wanted.
I didn’t want to hurt Aria.
I wanted to be her.
To slip beneath her skin, to wear her smile, to walk into a room and have every head turn because you existed.
What would it take?
If I peeled her open, piece by piece... took what she had and tucked it into myself, would they finally see me?
Would she still love me then?
Because lately, I’d started to fear that love wasn’t enough.
That maybe it never had been.