Like staring into the sun until everything burns away.
This must be what dying feels like. Heart jackhammering so hard I’m convinced something’s cracking inside my chest. My mouth is dry, nerves pulled tight as guitar strings, my whole body feels like it’s floating, weightless and terrified.
I’m lying here naked, my arms wrapped over my chest because the silk keeps sliding off, refusing to give me anything to hide behind. There’s a blindfold knotted at the back of my head. It’s so dangerously soft, like something you could get lost in if you let yourself. It blocks out everything, all of it. I couldn’t see if I wanted to.
That’s the point.
Right now, I want to disappear. To be invisible, but only if it means someone is actually looking.
My fists twist in the sheets, knuckles burning. If I squeeze hard enough, maybe I’ll wake up in my own bed, just tangled in another anxiety spiral. But this isn’t a nightmare. The air smells too expensive, a mix of vanilla, sex, and that faint hit of fresh paint. Nothing like home. The mattress is pure luxury, clouds and support. Nothing I deserve. The quiet is a living thing, heavy and humming in my ears, broken only by my shaky breathing.
Outside this room, I imagine everything is chaotic. People pretending not to look, measuring, deciding who gets to belong and who’s just background noise. I know where I fall. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here.
To carve out all the pieces of myself no one else has ever wanted.
Debora’s voice cuts through the silence, all sugar on the surface, poison underneath. “Nobody wants a desperate loser, April. You look so pathetic sitting by yourself. Honestly, what’s the point?”
She flips her perfect hair, that glossy, just-stepped-out-of-a-salon perfection, and flashes the world’s easiest smile.Why does everything come to her, and she never has to try?
Branda’s laugh follows, high-pitched and mean enough to leave a mark. “Maybe if you wore something besides graveyard chic, you’d at least get a guy to look at you. Or not. Maybe you should just pay someone, since you’re so hopeless.”
The words dig in. They always do. Even here, even now.
I curl tighter into myself, knees pulled up to my chest, trying to shrink down, disappear.
Then my stepmother’s voice, flat and bored, cuts in next. “Some girls are just born plain, April. You need to stop expecting men to see you how you want. People like you…well, you’re just unremarkable. Better focus on being useful instead of these silly ideas you get hung up on.”
She never had to say I wasn’t lovable. It was always there in her eyes, the way she looked right through me.
I squeeze my knees together, thighs shaking.Why am I even here?My whole body’s trembling, although not from cold. The temperature is perfect. But every inch of me is hot and clammy, goosebumps prickling across my skin.
This felt like a brilliant idea for about twelve seconds. Now I’m just lying here, exposed. One bad thought from bolting down the hall completely naked, bedsheet barely covering my ass and tears running down my face. Branda would say, “You’d totally be a punchline,” and she’d be right.
But fuck, I’m so tired of being invisible. So tired of always being the backup plan, never the first pick.
So, I wrote it down, hands shaking so hard the pen barely marked across the paper.Please, just make me feel wanted.Nothing witty. Nothing sexy. Just honest and messy. Something real, something someone would actually choose to say.
I handed it to the receptionist, probably being read by the stranger right now. For all I know, he’s already laughing at me.
I try to picture him, hoping he’s the kind of man who can see through all the bullshit, someone gentle, someone who actually wants me. Even if it’s only for tonight.
My heart is pounding, every beat a threat. I run my fingers over the inside of my wrist, desperate to ground myself, but all I can feel is sweat slicking my palms, my pulse going wild, and underneath everything, that ugly, gnawing hunger.
Wanting.
Am I asking for too much? The thought nags, sharp as broken glass.
Then…a barely there click.
The door.
My body locks up, frozen.
Silence, except for his footsteps. Not loud, but deliberate. Just enough that I can picture him, full-grown, not some snot-nosed frat boy from school who thinks it’s funny to laugh at me. He moves slowly, in control. Like he’s stalking something he actually wants.
Me.
I hug my arms tighter around my chest, not hiding, waiting. The air in the room shifts, goes heavy and electric, prickling over my skin. I swear I can smell him before he even gets close, cologne and leather, and something else, something purely male that makes my stomach flutter. It’s like a pocket of warmth that follows him, crowding out every empty place.
