Problems of an Invisible Girl

Chapter 3

She could only see her toothbrush standing in mid-air as if it was magically floating around the empty bathroom. But where was she? She couldn't see herself in the mirror, it was like she wasn't even there. The feel of the toothbrush in her hand assured her that she was there, she was alive, since her first thought was that she might have died and turned into a ghost. "What is happening here!? " She wondered. She hurried out of the bathroom and into her own room for fear that her scream might bring her family to investigate. The funny thing was, like anything that had to do with her, they didn't even notice the scream. It seemed impossible for someone to be unable to notice a scream of pure horror but Rina wasn't really surprised by their lack of interest. All her life they somehow managed to do the impossible, just not to notice or appreciate her. She locked her door and stared at her reflection, or the lack of, in her small mirror. "How is this even possible?" Pinching her cheek hurt a lot, so she was sure she was not dreaming so what was she? Her musings were interrupted by the slamming of the front door, they forgot to drive her to school again, no wonder she always walked. "How can they ignore all my needs, even the small ones? Why don't they see me the same way they see Rocky, Alex, and Drake? Am I invisible? "At that moment the realization hit her so hard that she had to sit down. "I AM invisible! How is that even possible."

This discovery shocked her so much that she started hyperventilating unable to breathe properly which hasn't happened to her since she was a child. At the time whenever she got too upset about the injustice was done to her she would start hyperventilating. They would just tell her to stop acting since that was not a way for a properly brought up child to behave. To some, it may sound as if they were mean but the truth was that they actually believed she was acting. That is why they decided that tough love would be the best approach. It didn't actually help stop her panic attacks, but she always just apologized and left the room, to them it was all the proof they needed. She would go into her room and spend hours hyperventilating until finally managing to come down. When she told her great-grandma, the only person who actually saw her for who she was, she helped her overcome the panic attacks as she called them. The most important thing was to breathe deeply and think about happy things, which was easy to do when great-grandma's warm eyes were giving her encouragement. It wasn't so easy to do that when she just found out she was invisible, there were no precedents for that situation.

Finally, thinking about her great-grandmother and how she always encouraged her and supported her helped her calm down. She didn't blame her mother for not being there for her when she most needed her, after all, it wasn't easy being a single parent raising four children, three of which were boys. It seemed as if she was always trying to make up to the boys for not having a father figure in their lives and along the way she just lost the sight of her daughter. She probably thought that the daughter had her mother and was well-adjusted, so she didn't need any additional help. Rina missed her mother, but she understood that her brothers needed her help more. As she was standing there invisible, Rina thought how nice it would be to have someone to hug, someone to hold her tight and tell her that everything would be okay. Great-grandma lived in a city far away from Rina's house and no one other than her seemed to care. "No, no I mustn't think like that I have to calm down! Happy thoughts Rina! Happy thoughts!" Once more she started breathing slowly and deeply thinking about all the fun times she spent with Zizi, that's how she called her great-grandma as a term of endearment.

She thought about what she should do next as her breathing evened out. Luckily for her, it was Saturday, so she didn't have to worry about school but still she had to do something about the fact that she was now invisible." I am invisible! Wow! This is impossible!" she thought, and she felt another panic attack on the horizon, but she stopped it in its track. Since it didn't take her by surprise this time it was much easier to stop it, after all, she had years of practice. "I am fine. This could actually be interesting, something new and exciting in my boring life," She told herself although she didn't actually believe her own words. Good thing or bad she had to figure out what was happening to her. She noticed that both her body and clothes were invisible but that she could feel the objects when taking them in her hand. It was also obvious that once in her hand the objects didn't become invisible which she kind of expected to happen. In one of the movies she had seen a long time ago when the main character, who was invisible, took the objects in his hand they became invisible. The thing was as far as she could remember the movie, the guy turned invisible because of some technology or chemistry, she couldn't remember clearly. With her, there was no technology, no toxic liquids or anything like that, she just woke up invisible.

Being exposed to something would make much more sense to her, and she thought she would have been able to figure it out but as it was she had no idea why it happened. Not knowing what else to do she went through the events of the previous night trying to find what might have triggered it. There was nothing special about the night before, same old, same old. They forgot about her birthday, left her home alone and never even checked if she came back from school, the usual. The only thing that was different was the fact that it was her eighteenth birthday. "That doesn't really matter, does it? " She thought to herself. " I am not a witch to get my powers on my eighteenth birthday or anything like that," she said laughing out loud. "Well, I did feel completely invisible yesterday, at school, at home, even to myself I seemed invisible. Did I somehow cause this? No, no it's impossible, isn't it? " She said out loud without realizing it.