Reborn To Be The Prime Empress

Chapter 2

Sally replayed the scene in her head over and over. Ethan’s soft grin, the warmth of his fingers as they brushed hers, the way he walked beside her, like they weren't just strangers to each other a few hours earlier. It didn’t matter that no one else had noticed what happened, in fact it was probably better that way. Because to her it was everything.

Proof that she wasn’t invisible. Not to him.

She laid awake in bed all night with her phone clutched to her chest. Scrolling through Ethan’s social accounts, lingering on photos of him with his teammates, with girls, with friends. She realized that in every one, he looked untouchable. Too far off for her to reach. But when he had looked at her, standing in the hot parking lot with dust still on her palms, it had felt real. For once, she let herself believe it.

By morning, the belief had hardened into reckless courage. No, she was convinced that she had a chance. Maybe she should confess.

Besides, “Opportunity knocks but once,” she thought to herself.

That afternoon, the cafeteria buzzed louder than usual. Sally sat alone at a corner table, her usual spot, while poking at soggy fries and rehearsing her lines in her head.

She would walk up to him when he was alone, and thank him again for saving her. But there was a problem: he was never alone. He always had someone around him, even though it was just one person. And she couldn't risk anyone else hearing what she had to tell him.

“I should probably quit,” she thought to herself. “Maybe it was a fluke. And besides, I might be reading too much into this.”

She sighed softly, letting the weight of her choices settle into her. Tell Ethan how she felt and risk blowing the whole thing out of proportion, or keep quiet and stick to her personal rule: Stay invisible, stay safe.

Both choices felt incredibly heavy. It pressed down on her, choked her.

“Do I really go ahead with this?” She asked herself again as Ethan’s laugh reverberated through the entire cafeteria. She closed her eyes and imagined what everything would be like if things worked out.

She, beside him, walking hand in hand, not scared or overly conscious of what other people were saying or thinking. Just he and her against the world. It was the best thing she'd ever felt.

Then, she tried thinking of what would happen if things didn't work out, but she couldn't. All she saw was black. Then she realized, smiling, “It can't go wrong.”

She opened her eyes and looked around for Ethan, but he was nowhere to be found. He'd left the cafeteria.

“This is my chance!” She thought, immediately getting up to go look for him. “Worst case scenario, he tells me no.” She searched almost everywhere inside the school for him.

When she finally found him, he was by the vending machines just outside the school building. Her knees buckled slightly at the sight of him. He was surrounded by two friends, but he looked up when she approached. His eyes lit with a recognition that made her breath hitch.

“H-Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he answered, surprisingly. She couldn’t believe it. Even she could barely hear her own voice, so it was a surprise that he did. She was about to continue when, “ You're the girl from yesterday. They didn't steal your phone again, did they?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. More confident now, knowing for sure that he remembered her. “Can I talk to you over there, please?”

He shrugged and followed her. His friends did as well. She stopped and added, “Alone, please.”

Ethan looked at them, and without saying a word, they both left. Thankfully , they didn't seem to be offended.

“So, what's up?” Ethan's curiosity broke the silence.

“Uhm, about yesterday… I just wanted to say thank you.”

Ethan kept quiet and watched her. Then he jolted slightly when he realized she'd finished. “Oh, is that all? You don't have to thank me. It's alright.” He was about to leave, but the expression on Sally's face made him realize she wasn't done. “Is that all?”

She shook her head nervously, her eyes fixed to the same spot on the ground. She couldn't look him in the eyes. She wouldn't dare. There was a high chance that her heart wouldn't be able to handle it. “I…” The words got stuck in her throat. So, she swallowed hard and tried again. “I like you, Ethan.”

“Huh?”

“Like, really really like you.”

The silence lasted a heartbeat too long. Then a grin appeared on his face. First faintly, then it quickly spread wide, and his voice boomed far louder than hers ever could.

“Yo, guys! Guess what?” He called his friends. They both turned to look. “Sally Gordon likes me!”

The words slammed into her like a truck. His friends cackled instantly. Their voice incredibly loud despite being a distance away. There hysterics soon attracted more people outside, and within seconds, the ripple spread. Laughter surged throughout the school as word of her confession travelled like wild fire.

“No way!” “Gordon? For real?” “She actually said it?”

Her face burned. Everything from the sky above her head, to the ground beneath her feet, all blurred into a haze of sound and heat. She wanted to vanish. To fold herself into a scrap of paper small enough to slip through the cracks in the ground.

Ethan placed an arm around one of his buddies, still grinning like he’d told the best joke of the week. Basking in the wave and light that his bomb of an action had created, he didn’t look at her again.

“I should've remained invincible,” grated against her mind repeatedly. Etching itself deeper and deeper until all she could hear were the sounds of the laughter telling her the same thing. “You should’ve remained invincible.”

By the time Sally stumbled home, her body moved without thought. She climbed the stairs to her room, shut the door, and pressed her back against it, shaking. The walls seemed to close in, wallpaper pressing against her skin.

Her desk was cluttered with small relics: a ceramic cat from middle school, a dried flower pressed between notebooks, the polaroid of her mother laughing with her at the beach. None of it anchored her. None of it mattered.

Her chest felt hollow. Her breath came shallow, scantily. Barely enough to keep her standing upright. The shame had curdled into certainty: invisibility had been safety. Being seen… being seen was death. That was the darkness that she'd seen.

She whispered to the empty room, defeated, “I can’t do this anymore.”

She dropped her bag on the floor of the room and walked out. Down the stairs, then out the front door.

She wasn't going anywhere in particular. She just… walked. One leg in front of the other, one step after another. For as long as she could.

All the while, her head hung low, with her eyes glued to the ground. Like she was ashamed to let anyone see her face.

In the distance, she heard a faint sound, a soft blare. Like an ambience from far off. It was almost calming. Thankfully, it didn't stop. At least not until she felt a sudden, wide, and intense jab in her side. She became weightless for a few seconds before coming to a sudden halt.

Her eyes saw blue, and her back… it felt like she was lying down. “What happened?” She wondered as she tried to move, but she couldn't.

The edges of her vision darkened, soft and inevitable. The last thing she saw was a bird flying overhead. It had an unusual color, one she'd never seen before. It seemed to circle her for a brief moment, but then…

The world went out like a light.