Invisible
Ali
MAGNOLIA BLUFF UNIVERSITY, 2015
Ali stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen, praying it would type something brilliant on its own.
It didn’t.
Dr. Mitchell’s voice droned on at the front of the room— something about narrative tension and “writing from the wound,” which, on any other day, Ali would’ve loved. But today her brain was cotton. She tapped her pen against her notebook, ignoring the mostly empty page in front of her and doodling a lopsided flower in the margin.
This was what she wanted. What she loved— words, stories, turning messy feelings into sentences that made people feel something. Her dad called it “fluff.” Said she was smart enough to do something practical. Like accounting.
God, she’d rather eat glass.
A text buzzed on her phone.
Daisy:
Lunch after class? ?? I need to talk to youuuuuu
Ali smiled, already hearing Daisy’s dramatic voice in her head. She was a hurricane in designer sandals— always talking, always sparkling, always pulling Ali into things she had no business doing. And Ali let her. Always.
She glanced at the clock— thirty more minutes. Just ten minutes, three times. That’s how she always tricked her brain: break the time down, make it smaller, easier to survive. Ten minutes didn’t feel so bad
She shifted in her seat, the desk creaking slightly beneath her. Being the curviest girl in class always made her hyper-aware of the space she took up, especially in these old lecture hall chairs clearly built for someone with half her hips and none of her thighs.
Still, she sat up straighter and took a breath.
You’re here, she reminded herself. You made it to MBU. This is not the junior college in your hometown. You’re doing the damn thing.
And maybe— just maybe— one day her stories would take her somewhere bigger than hometown of Honeyshore or Peach Cove (where MBU was located). Somewhere she didn’t feel so… ordinary.
Ali beat Daisy to Sandytown Diner, their usual lunch spot. She picked a booth in the back and ordered a Coke Zero while she waited on her bestie. She wasn’t sure when Daisy would actually get there since 12:30 meant like 1:15ish to Daisy, so she pulled out her Kindle to pass the time.
“I swear, if I have to hear one more time about her yacht named after a Kardashian, I’m going to drown myself in a whole gallon of those frickin’ Celsius drinks she’s obsessed with.”
Daisy slammed her purse and backpack down on the bench seat across from Ali, startling the shit out of her in the process. Daisy’s oversized sunglasses slid to the end of her nose, revealing the dramatic eye roll she’d perfected since middle school.
Ali stifled a laugh, putting away her Kindle. “You picked Kappa Nu. You knew what you were signing up for.”
“Correction,” Daisy said, holding up a manicured finger. “I picked Kappa Nu because I have taste. I did not pick this monster child for my Little.”
Ali raised a brow. “She can’t be that bad.”
“She says ‘supposably.’ On purpose. Like it’s a personality trait.”
Ali snorted.
“She cried because she didn’t get the peach Stanley cup in her bid basket. Then she tried to trade someone for theirs like it was the Hunger Games.” Daisy leaned in, lowering her voice dramatically. “She also asked me what a GPA was. Or, as she called it, ’a gappa’”.
“No.”
“Oh yes. Oh! And after I explained what aGPAis… she said— and I quote— ‘Do we even have to worry about that if our dads donate enough?’”
Ali coughed on her soda, laughing. “She’s a legacy, right?”
Daisy flopped back in her seat. “Of course she is. Her mom was president back when Kappa Nu was more interested in charm bracelets and diet pills than actual philanthropy.”
