"Nobody sees me like you do, and without you, I'll be invisible. I exist because you see me."
― A. J. Compton

Zanna.

  Blayze and I had talked all night it seemed. Seriously. I never thought I'd be able to talk to a jock, let alone him, about anything. We talked and talked. We told each our favorite things. For instance I told him my favorite color was pink and my favorite food was meatloaf. He told me his favorite color was red, and he liked eating his mom's homemade dip.

  When Blayze had told me that memory about seeing me in the school's lobby, that opened up a lot of doors for me. I was beginning to remember a lot of things. Like who I was before the accident. The feelings I had towards people and things.

  When I'd seen Blayze and Julie Tatherson making out on the bed. I knew there'd been something I didn't like about that girl.

  But I knew now.

  She was a bitch, if you wanted to sum it up that way—harsh or not. Julie always had to be the center of attention. She didn't like me. I just knew she didn't. We never got into it, or anything like that. It was just the looks she'd give me every time I passed her in the school hallway. She'd look at me as if I were a bucket of poop.

  Then there was the memories at school. Wayward High. I remembered feeling lonesome and ostracized like a black sheep. I hadn't fit-in, I didn't fit-in. Ugh, whatever way I thought about it, it made me feel more confused, on wether or not I was gonna make it out alive.

  I looked down at the floor, as more thoughts of school began to flow inside my brain. I began to feel a little sad. Had I existed at all?

  "Hey," Blayze said, nudging me on the arm. I looked up at him. He gave me a warm smile. "What's wrong," he asked, noticing my offset mood. I then saw as his smile quickly morphed into a frown. His face showed... concern?

  He was showing concern for me?

  I remembered Blayze was popular. That party he was at, only people who were popular and had a lot of friends were able to attend parties like that—unlike me. I turned away from Blayze, he shouldn't be talking to me, now that I thought about it. What would his friends say if he'd told them he was talking to Zanna Purgeth?

  "Nothing," I said, standing up and walking towards the door. I needed to go. If I was ever going to wake up from this coma I was in, Blayze would just go on ignoring me like he had before. Not that he'd meant to, I guess. He'd noticed me that one time and that one time only, and after that I'd gotten hit by a car—he barely even got a chance to know my name.

  What else was there to it?

  "Zanna, where are you going?" he followed me and grabbed my arm. I turned around and gave him a fierce look. "What, Blayze. You don't think I forgot what you'd said at the lake?"

  I hadn't forgotten about that argument. Before this, that argument at the lake, had been the number 1 thing on my mind.

  "What argument?"

  Was he playing dumb?

  "Seriously, Blayze. You didn't forget what'd you said, I'm glad I hadn't known you before this."

  I saw his eyes fall. "Zanna, you know I was high and I wasn't feel—"

  "Oh, but that didn't mean it hadn't been true?"

  He didn't say anything. I knew it.

  "Thought so," I said.

  I needed to go back to the hospital.

()()()

  My sister was here.

  Not that I hadn't known.

  I told Blayze that my sister had came and visited me in the hospital earlier today.

  My sister's name was Tish (short for LaTisha) and she lived in Chicago with her boyfriend Keith. She also went to college in Chicago.

  When I phased through my hospital room, I saw that Tish was still there from earlier, and was looking down at my body. Her face was red and puffy as if she'd been crying. Honestly me and Tish weren't close, and seeing her red and tearful face, made me think, perhaps the bond we once shared, was still there.

  I smiled wistfully a bit. Maybe things would be better when I woke up.

  Mom was getting lenient towards her habits. Like the few beers she'd drink each night after coming home. Not that she was a drunk, for she didn't drink a lot, plus she was able to function without it, too. Alcohol was a remedy, for her when it came to coming home from working late. She'd grab a cold one from the fridge, pop it open, and guzzle it down.

  However, when I'd been checking on her these past few days, I noticed that for the first time, she hadn't bought one case of beer. She was working on herself, I realized. Mom wasn't a bad mom, but she had demons and those demons at times haunted her, and forced her to retreat to some ways. She never harmed anyone by drinking a few beers, smoking a couple cigarettes, or listening to some oldies. Mom continued to care and love me, no matter what.

  Tish was 5 years older than me. We kinda looked alike. She shared the same red hair and pale skin with me and mom—we all could pass as triplets if we wanted to. The only difference was Tish's eyes were blue, Mom's were green. And I had the boring brown eyes.

  "Mom's coming back," Tish said, touching my hand. I looked down at my hand. I didn't know what I was expecting, but my hand didn't glow or tingle, much less did anything spectacular. "I love you Zay."

  I cracked a smile at my sister. Tish really was affected. Especially if she came all the way from Chicago to freakin' Minnesota. I wonder what she would say to me once I woke up. But the question that kept eating me was: Would I ever wake up?

  I know that damn question seemed so repetitive, but was I getting better? I needed the reassurance that I was still somehow, going to live. Maybe Tish and Mom would be affected, and perhaps even some of my distant relatives, but, but where did that leave my apathetic classmates, and my legacy? I didn't have a legacy. I wouldn't be leaving a freaking legacy. And everyone's lives would still go on, and eventually I wouldn't matter. Blayze would forget about me too.

()()()

  Even though there was a lot of awkward tension between me and Blayze, and the mixed emotions I felt towards him. I decided to still visit him, again.

  When I was back in his room, he wasn't there. But I did hear some yelling. He was probably arguing with his parents...again.

  I sat on his bed the best I could. It was weird being in a guy's room. That guy was Blayze Terran, who I never thought would ever be talking to me, interacting with me; I never thought I'd ever have anything to do with Blayze Terran.

  I kind of laughed, when I thought in repetition, I'm in Blayze Terran's room,

  I'm in Blayze Terran's room.

  "You're back."

  Blayze shut the door, giving me a goofy grin. Was he high again? Man, he needed to stop doing weed. I heard that stuff caused memory loss.

  "Yeah....my sister came and visited me today."

  He nodded and sat beside me on the bed. "Cool. Was she saying anything?"

  I blushed (I don't know if ghost did that, but I swore my face started to heat up) at the close proximity Blayze and I shared. He looked at me intently, waiting for me to answer the question he asked. "Uh, yeah...she said she loved me. And you know, that was interesting to hear, since we'd never been really close."

  "Oh..." was the only thing he said. Soon after came the silence. After five minutes of the awkward silence there was a beeping noise coming from Blayze's phone. He looked at me, and then did he get off the bed and pick up his phone from the desk.

  "Shit!" He cursed.

  I didn't know why he cursed, but he didn't look too happy. "I didn't fucking sleep with her," he mumbled. Blayze began to speedily text on his phone, and after some time he stopped texting, put his phone back on the desk and sat back down on the bed. "Will was saying crap to me on Facebook on my message board, about how leaving the party too freaking early was not cool. And then Mark's messaging me about how he had called dibs on Julie, and that sleeping with her was a bro-code no-no."

  I laughed at all that he said. Especially when he said "bro code no-no." Too funny!

  I fell back on the bed with my hand on my stomach, laughing. While I was worrying about wether or not my body was going to come out of a coma, Blayze on the other hand was getting heated up about false assumptions and fakery from his so-called friends, and FAKEBOOK (My own name for Facebook)!

  Blayze must've gotten a little annoyed about my laughing because once I was done cackling, he said in that annoyed of his, "What's so fucking funny?"

  I barely took him seriously when he was annoyed, because honestly, he looked a little cute when he got angry, and he was sweating the small stuff. "You're friends, aren't your friends," I told him.

  I then sat up, and gave him a knowing look

  He shook his head. "And that's coming from someone who doesn't have friends," he mumbled.

  I shrugged off the remark. "Well, I'd rather have no friends than fake friends; the ones who leave you hanging."

  He didn't say anything after I made that comment. Instead he ran his fingers through his hair and fell back on the bed. I fell back too, and stared up at the ceiling, he was doing the same.

  Again, did silence feel the atmosphere. But it became a little more comfortable.

  "Zanna," Blayze said after a little while, "I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  "Everything."

  He turned his head and looked at me. I mean, he really looked at me. He studied my face, as I blushed at how close we were. Man, being this close to a boy was just really uncomfortable. I didn't know how to disappear in this moment. That's all I wanted to do; was to disappear and never having to stare into Blayze's eyes like I was willingly doing at moment.

  "You're beautiful," he said quietly. "And I wish- I wish I could've talked to you before all of this."

  "Thanks," I said, flustered. I was staring at the ceiling, still feeling his eyes boring into my soul. "But you don't have to say all of that...to get me to forgive you. I forgive you, 'Kay?"

  "But I do mean it. You're really beautiful."

  Ugh, I wanted to stop blushing. I wanted him to stop talking. I wanted him to stop looking at me.

  "Zanna, I wish my life was different."

  I looked at him in a curious manner, and I lifted one of my eyebrows. "Why? Both of your parents still live in the same household, you're practically rich, you have friends, and you most-likely know what you're going to be doing after high school..."

  "But I just know, when I walk into school...I'm gonna have to put on this façade...like I'm the shit. And I'm gonna have to act like I love football, a-and everyone's gonna pressure me into letting myself get nominated for homecoming king, and I'm gonna be riding the bus on Monday. My friends are going to think I'm whack...

  "And you know, that's not even the rest of it. Seriously; I'm afraid of persecution.

  "If I was anything like my cousin Allan, I'd be a drinker. It's all this fucking pressure. Zanna, you don't know what that feels like.

  "I know my mom and dad have cheated on each other. My cousin Allan told me, that my mom slept with his dad—my uncle, once. It was like ten years ago. And my dad slept with one of his lady patients before. I swear he did. When I was twelve, my mom and me were giving him a surprise visit at the hospital. While my mom was chatting with the receptionist lady, I walked into the room my dad was in, and he was kissing this young lady. They didn't see me 'cause I sort of just ran away before they saw me staring. After that, I had to act like things were still fine."

  I looked at him, and saw his pained face expression. But I swore my family and life was a little more dysfunctional and un-ideal than his, and I was going to tell him that too, but he then said to me, looking right at me. "You have it easy. I'm sure your mother's never made you feel bad for being you. Mine most certainly have. My mom and dad want to put off a façade of a perfect marriage, a perfect home, a perfect life...that they don't realize their actions.

  "I don't mean to sound so, angry. But I am. And I'm not the perfect Blayze, everyone—including you—must think I am. But I'm not. I'm sorry.

  "And Zanna, just keep being you. For the love of God, just keep being you."

  After saying that soliloquy, I would've fallen asleep too. It wasn't even past 6pm, and Blayze was fast asleep. Yet, before falling asleep, he'd given me a genuine smile and my hand a squeeze.

  Yet, unknowingly to him, as he napped, I spent all that time just staring at him. Glad to know he had shared some things to me that others did not know (I'm most sure of).

  It was almost like he saw me as a friend. Were me and him friends? Did he consider me a friend?

  I didn't know for sure, but I felt illimitable.

—

A/N: There ya go! I hope you liked the chapter. I'm not sure if, Zanna and Blayze are aware that they can hold hands, and stuff.

Please tell me what ya think.

Did you like how Blayze opened up to Zanna?

Is Zanna going to make it?

How do you feel about Blayze's family situation?

—

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