Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 04 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Sky Ferreira — “Leash”
The person who wrote no pressure starts calling her baby girl.
It should feel presumptuous and dismissive. Even a little creepy, considering how little time they have been talking.
Still…
She likes it.
Even if liking it means she has been lying to herself about who she thinks she is.
It begins with a photograph from an account he does not know exists.
The photograph is not new. Other people have already seen it and reacted. She saves it back to her phone. She usually deletes pictures like this from her camera roll, in case anyone ever looks through it.
She sends it to him with, “something for you.”
She never says she took it for him. She never says nobody else has seen it.
His reply appears beneath the photograph.
“Just for me?”
She reacts with a heart instead of answering. The heart is not yes. It only looks like one beneath the question.
Then another message appears.
“There’s my baby girl.”
She reads it twice, hearing it differently each time.
The first time, as a reply to the photograph. The second, as a statement about who she is to him.
They have gone from no pressure to my baby girl. She is already trying to see herself that way.
It starts feeling like something they settled while she was not paying attention.
She likes it too much to ask whether they did.
She starts putting sorry before answers that used to be enough on their own. His replies arrive shortly after hers, each one giving her a small rush at the thought of where things might lead.
Soon, sorry starts feeling normal. Questioning it might spoil the part she likes.
When his green dot disappears, she checks often enough to see it return.
Soon the app itself becomes part of what she is supposed to explain. He wants them to talk somewhere else and for her to delete this one. If she likes him the way she says she does, keeping it must mean she is still looking for something else.
She asks what deleting it would make them.
He still does not want a label. He only wants to know she is serious about him.
His answer gives them no name. It only gives her something to betray.
She types, “so it has rules but no name?”
On the screen, it looks like an argument. Worse, it looks like she wants an answer.
She deletes it.
She had wanted him to feel chosen. She thought that might make his attention feel different from everyone else’s. She still cannot tell what she is to him without using the words he chose for her.
She holds her thumb over the app until a menu appears. Instead of Delete App, she chooses Remove from Home Screen.
The icon disappears.
The app remains.
She takes a screenshot of the home screen. It looks like proof, as long as nobody searches.
She does not send it.
A message preview from the hidden app asks whether she has deleted it yet. She tries to remember what she said that made it sound settled.
She clears the preview, searches her phone for the hidden app, and opens it.
His message is still unread at the top. The green dot beside his profile is lit. She does not answer.
For now, unread is the only status between them she gets to choose.