Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 02 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Faye Webster — “But Not Kiss”
The person asking for a picture follows his unanswered question mark with a picture. With lighting that bad and an angle that unflattering, it takes her a moment to understand what he intended.
She blocks him.
The app asks whether she also wants to report the account. She chooses No.
Reporting would make the photograph into something that happened.
Blocking only makes the conversation disappear.
That is enough to soothe her annoyance.
For now.
As with most things in her life, she is not ready to make a big deal out of it if doing so means calling attention to herself.
She was never attracted to whatever version of himself he had shown her in the few messages they had exchanged. He complimented everything she posted and remembered that she had trouble sleeping, although he may only have remembered because the little green dot beside her name kept announcing that she was online.
She makes a mental note to change her status to Invisible.
Thinking about it feels enough like doing something. Not enough to turn the green dot grey, but enough for her.
Choosing Invisible feels less like changing a setting and more like making a declaration about the rest of her life.
She starts changing her bio, hoping the right combination of words might make the next person do something different from everyone who came before.
For a moment, it says, “I get attached too easily.”
The longer she stares at it, the more it reads like something people would screenshot after her body turned up in a shallow pond.
She deletes the sentence, returning the bio to how it was, and replaces one of her photographs instead. It is the same photograph, cropped far enough to look new.
Nothing changes. Just the perspective.
The person she blocked cannot see this version of her. She likes being the one who decides.
She did not want what he offered, not then, not from him, and not in that way.
She opens Settings, then Blocked Accounts.
His name is still there.
She leaves him where she can find him.
Just like the others.