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Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 26 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan

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Playlist Track: Olivia Rodrigo — “all-american bitch”

His answer is smaller than the future she builds while the dots are moving.

“Okay.”

Another message follows.

“Then if something changes, you tell me. I’ll do the same.”

She believes him. On the screen, the promise looks easy to keep.

“deal,” she writes.

He asks if she wants to begin with check-ins and no disappearing when a conversation becomes difficult. She agrees.

It sounds manageable while nothing is difficult.

On the site, she opens the setting that controls whether new people can find her. The choices are Visible, Hidden, and Paused.

Hidden feels too much like pretending.

She chooses Paused.

The site warns her that existing conversations will remain.

She accepts that too.

She archives the person she unpinned. She leaves the ordinary conversations where they are. The side account stays online with its changing grid and unfinished drafts.

When she returns to the first screen, the phone looks almost the same.

In Notes, she finds the old line, I want this to count. Farther down is I think I could belong to you.

She does not move either sentence into the new conversation.

An incoming call fills the screen and stops whatever was playing.

There is no message field. Nothing to rewrite before he hears it.

For a moment, she only looks at the two choices.

Then she presses Accept.

His first hello sounds less certain than his voice notes. He laughs, starts again, and she likes him more for having to.

They talk without editing. There are small silences neither of them can delete.

During one of them, he asks if she is still there.

“I’m here,” she says.

For once, somewhere else can wait.

The music stays paused behind his voice.

She doesn’t.