Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 08 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Men I Trust — “Show Me How”
They bring up meeting again, as if it is an ordinary thing waiting somewhere ahead of them. If they ever meet, she can choose what they watch. Their choices are apparently terrible.
She reads if they ever meet again.
The meeting is there. So is if.
She answers with a joke about the films she never finishes and lets the conversation keep moving. By the time she thinks of asking what they meant, they are talking about something else.
Later, she starts one of the films they joked about watching together. Eight minutes in, she stops it.
She tells herself she wasn’t in the mood.
Easier than admitting she wanted to save it in case she could watch it with them.
She types, “can i ask what this is?”
The question looks reasonable until she reads it from their side of the conversation. From there, it looks like a demand from somebody who said she expected nothing.
She deletes it.
Instead, she opens the hidden app and searches their old conversation. She finds the message she sent when they first asked what she wanted. She said she did not mind keeping things simple. She expected nothing.
At the time, expecting nothing had sounded different from wanting nothing.
It still does if she reads it quickly enough.
Back in their new conversation, she tries again.
“not trying to make this weird, but what are we doing?”
The word weird makes it sound as though asking is already the problem. She sounds sorry before she has even asked.
She deletes that version too.
A notification from them covers the empty message field. They have sent something unrelated because it made them think of her.
It answers neither question.
It makes both of them harder to send.
She reacts to it, answers whatever they ask next, and waits while the typing dots come and go.
Then she opens the conversation menu and pins the thread.
She tells herself it is easier than losing them beneath all the others.
Their conversation was already at the top.
The question is gone.
The pin stays.