Problems of an Invisible Girl

Chapter 5

She didn't have enough money to go and visit Zizi who was the only person in the world who would listen to her without thinking she was crazy. When she was a child she loved spending her summers with Zizi because she never seemed to be bored by her presence like the others were. It was easy for Rina to share her thoughts and feelings, and she even felt comfortable enough to sing and share her hopes and dreams with Zizi. It was the only time she truly felt she was herself, with others she seemed to have to disappear for them to be satisfied. Having no friends in the town and being unable to visit Zizi she decided to visit the only other place where she felt comfortable and even happy, the library. It was Saturday but the city library was still open, so she decided to quickly rent a few books to read at home. Deciding to do more extensive research on Monday when the library had normal working hours.

Over the years, she had found answers to many of her questions in the library. When she asked her mother something she would just repeat the question and start talking about something that had nothing to do with Rina's question. It was as if she heard the question, thought it was boring, and went on talking about her life and problems or even worse about the ones of her neighbors. She would go on and on about how impolite they were for not calling her when she had a cold, about their daughter still being single and so on. It would last for hours, that monologue about people who Rina barely knew or didn't know at all. If Rina tried to leave she would call her back for some reason that made no sense and would continue her tirade about how people were terrible, impolite, useless and so on. With years Rina learned to ignore what she said and to just nod her head and from time to time make some agreeing noises. That was enough to keep the monologue going, and she didn't stop until a phone call or one of her sons interrupted. Then Rina would take the opportunity to leave by saying she had to study. She was eager to run away from gossip lying that she had to study. She loved her mother, she really did but the constant negativity and the fact that she always ignoring Rina when she didn't need her (which was often) made Rina distance herself from her mother. For the same reasons she distanced herself from her brothers, and then she realized that she was very lonely. She couldn't visit Zizi as much as she wanted since they moved far away from her town a few years before.

She might have been eighteen, but she really needed her mom to tell her what to do, to explain what was happening. But she knew she couldn't have that, so she was satisfied with going to the library and renting a few books about invisibility. Rina spent whole Sunday in her room reading those books, but she didn't find anything concrete that would help her stop the invisibility from happening again. Luckily, there was no repeat of the Saturday situation, but she had a feeling that it might happen at any moment and that scared her to death. Sunday night she couldn't fall asleep, she kept tossing and turning, worried that she might become invisible during school hours and that would be really bad. What was she supposed to do, if that happened? She had no idea and feverishly hoped she wouldn't have to find out.

As she prepared for school her brothers almost ran over her in their hurry to go out of the door. "Hey I am not invisible!" she thought. Upon thinking that, she checked her reflection in the toaster and was happy to see that she was visible, it was just her family not noticing her again. When she opened the refrigerator to have some breakfast she saw that it was empty, completely and totally empty. There was food in it the previous night, she remembered checking. She always checked because she needed breakfast more than any other meals. It wasn't the first time that they ate her breakfast so it was far from shocking. There would be food in the fridge in the evening and then her mother and brothers would eat it all for breakfast leaving her with nothing but a snide remark. That morning it was her mother who made the remark: " Well if you want to eat the food, you have to buy it!" she said cheerfully all too aware that breakfast was essential for her. She thought it was just a whim, that the girl was always exaggerating. Rina didn't have time to go to the grocery store since she would be late for school. Luckily for Rina, she had some money left over from some private tutoring she did without telling anyone, and she planned on buying a sandwich and eating it on her way to school. Her mother didn't seem to care that her daughter would go to school without breakfast when she told her mother she didn't have the time to go shopping.

At school, it wasn't much better and although eating the sandwich helped her feel a bit better Rina had a feeling that it would be one of those days. The days on which people seemed to notice her even less than usual. She liked it sometimes, being unnoticed, but she didn't like that it often happened with so-called friends. Her two best friends as they liked to call themselves, although Rina wasn't sure if that was what they really were, often noticed her during the periods of tests and exams, when they passed they seemed to forget all about her. On that Monday they said hello to her and immediately talked about their own problems. Mel was in love with an older guy who Rina suspected was much older and maybe even married. Angela talked about her cousin who she thought was really cute and Rina just stood there frozen wondering what was wrong with them. They ignored her completely the whole day, talking about their weird love lives and once she tried to say something Mel rudely said: "Can't you see that I am talking? This is more important than your boring little life!" and she went on talking to Angela as if nothing had happened. Once more Rina was ignored by both her family and friends. "Maybe I deserve to be ignored. What if it is all my fault? I should have been better, more interesting. They are right I am boring." She thought that and then suddenly she could see that her feet were becoming transparent. "Oh, no not now!" she thought in sheer panic.