Phantom Touches (1)

Nova

“Hey.”

The voice came from directly behind me, so sudden and unexpected that I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I spun around, my heart doing something complicated and arrhythmic in my chest. Finn stood there—the school’s notorious bad boy, the guy teachers gave up on and students either feared or worshipped from a distance. He was staring straight at me with dark, unreadable eyes, as if he was seeing me for the first time.

My stomach did a violent flip.

“Hey,” I managed, and the word came out barely above a whisper, thin and uncertain.

He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t smile, didn’t explain. He simply looked at me for one more long, loaded second, like he’d confirmed something he needed to know, then turned and walked away. His leather jacket moved with him, leaving me frozen in the middle of the hallway.

What just happened?

My mind fractured into frantic pieces. Finn had never spoken to me before. Not once in the years we’d attended the same school.

I was invisible here—the girl people looked past on their way to somewhere more interesting. And now, suddenly, he’d walked right up to me and said... what? One word?

“Is something wrong?”

Another voice, softer this time but just as unexpected. I looked up into Kelly’s face—the football captain, the guy who had half the school in love with him and the other half wanting to be him.

He was looking at me with concern, his brow furrowed as if he were genuinely worried.

“I...” My brain scrambled to form words. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

He studied me, those clear eyes searching my face. “Are you sure? You look shaken.”

“Yes.” I tucked a stray hair behind my ear, avoiding his gaze.

He nodded slowly. “Okay. Take care of yourself, Nova.”

He knew my name. Kelly knew my name.

He walked away, and I stood there trembling, trying to process the last five minutes. Two of the most popular guys in school, who existed in a different league altogether, had acknowledged my presence.

I didn’t know what to do with that information, so I did what I always did when reality became too strange: I went to class.

As I hurried down the hallway, I brushed shoulders with a girl from the cheer squad. She didn’t even look at me; she just adjusted her bag and kept talking to her friend as if she’d bumped into a locker.

I slipped into my English Lit 401 class just as the bell rang. Mr. Harrison was passing out graded essays from last week. I sat in my usual seat, third row, far left, the “dead zone” where the fluorescent light flickered.

“Excellent work on the symbolism, Kelly,” Mr. Harrison said, beaming as he handed Kelly his paper.

When he got to my row, he stopped at the desk in front of me, then skipped right over to the boy behind me. He had to double back, his eyes squinting at my name as if it were written in a foreign language.

“Ah... Nova. Right. Here you go,” he muttered, dropping the paper on my desk without a second glance. He didn’t notice I had the highest grade in the class.

I stared at the red ‘A’ at the top of my page. I was a ghost with good grades. I sat in my usual seat, a shadow in the back, while my thoughts paced the cage of my skull, trying to understand why the two suns of this school had suddenly decided to shine on me.

*

I tried to go back to being invisible. I really did.

I kept my head down in the hallways, sat in my usual seat at the back of every classroom, and avoided eye contact with everyone, just like I’d always done. But something had changed, something I couldn’t take back.

The peace of my life, the safe invisibility I had embraced like armor, had been shattered. And I had no idea how to fix it.

For the next week, every time I closed my eyes, I didn’t see formulas or notes from class. I saw Finn’s dark, intense eyes looking at me like I mattered. I saw Kelly’s gentle concern when he asked if I was okay.

They haunted me. Two ghosts that had woken up a girl who’d been invisible to the world for so long she’d started to feel dead inside.

And now I didn’t know how to go back to being that girl.

“Stop it, Nova,” I whispered to myself, pressing my palms against my eyes.

But I couldn’t stop.

Every quiet moment, my thoughts were hijacked. I’d built entire scenarios—impossible, forbidden things. I could still feel them looking at me with that raw intention, that heavy sense of want.

In my mind, the fantasy bloomed into something darker: the two of them together, claiming me, burying themselves deep inside me until they took up every inch of space—until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t be anything but theirs. The thought alone made me dizzy.

“Nova!”

Amy’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Where did you go? I’ve been saying your name for like thirty seconds.”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling my face heat. “I was just... thinking.”

“Well, stop thinking and start listening.” She grinned. “My birthday is in two days, and you’re coming to the party. No excuses.”

“Amy—”

“I said no excuses!” She pointed at me dramatically. “You’re my best friend. My only real friend at this school. You’re coming, and you’re going to have fun, and you’re going to wear something that isn’t jeans and a hoodie for once in your life.”

“Okay,” I stated. “I’ll be there.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” She beamed. “Because I already told my mom you were coming, and she’s making that chocolate cake you like.”

The bell rang, and Amy hurried off to her next class, leaving me alone with my thoughts again.

A party with people socializing, likely including Finn and Kelly, as all the important schoolmates would be at Amy’s party.

Great.

*

“You’re back, Nova!” Mother called from the kitchen as I walked through the front door.

“Yes, Mom. I’m going to take a shower before dinner.”

“Alright, sweetheart. Dinner’s almost ready, so don’t take too long.”

I dropped my bag on my bed and headed straight for the bathroom, already feeling the stress of the day clinging to my skin. The warm water was a relief—washing away the tension, the confusion, and the constant buzz of thoughts I couldn’t turn off.

But even here, in the shower, my mind wouldn’t give me peace.

It wandered back to Kelly’s eyes, the way he’d looked at me with concern. To Finn’s dark, assessing gaze that had made me feel seen in a way that was both thrilling and terrifying.

Heat pooled low in my stomach, and I pressed my forehead against the cool tile, trying to will it away, but I couldn’t.

This was ridiculous. They were just guys—popular, yes, but still just guys. And I was nobody to them. That moment in the hallway had probably meant nothing. They’d probably forgotten about it ten seconds after walking away.

But my body didn’t care about logic. It responded anyway—to the memory, to the fantasy, to the impossible.

“Hmm…” I moaned softly, slipping my hand inside myself. The water mixed with the slick warmth of my own desire as I cupped my breasts, sliding and thrusting with increasing urgency.

“Just like that…” I whispered, imagining Kelly’s long, strong fingers inside me, pressing deep, moving faster with every thought. Waves of pleasure rippled across my body.

I shifted, picturing Finn—hot, demanding, sucking my nipples, teasing every sensitive spot until I shivered violently.

“Ha… yes… more,” I gasped, lost in the delirium of sensation. My fingers thrust, my mind racing between their imagined touches, the erotic fantasy consuming me entirely.

“I’m coming…” I cried out, my body trembling as the climax rolled over me like a storm. My heart pounded, breath ragged, entirely spent, yet craving more.

Just as I leaned back, catching my breath, I noticed a movement at the edge of the bathroom mirror—someone was in my room.