Chapter 3

"Mom, is Jenny okay?" Adrian asked, his voice suddenly quieter.

"Why wouldn't she be?" Mom replied from the kitchen while washing dishes. The rush of running water nearly drowned out her words.

"She's always like this, making a huge deal out of everything." She paused, then added, "Remember when you pulled her chair out? She was in bed for two months, but she turned out totally fine."

I drifted into Adrian's room.

His computer was still on, with a game running on the screen. He lounged in his chair with his feet propped on the desk, lazily sucking on a lollipop.

Just then, his phone buzzed with a text from a friend. "Dude, how's your sister?"

Adrian typed back almost immediately. "She's fine. Just faking it like always."

"Your mom didn't yell at you?"

"Why would she? She knows that my sister is just being dramatic."

"I see. Switch it up next time, haha."

Adrian grinned and swirled the lollipop to the other side of his mouth as his thumbs flew across the screen.

"Sure. Next time I'll hide her homework so she can't turn it in."

"LOL, savage."

I stared at the messages on the screen, feeling something shatter inside me.

It wasn't anger. It was something far colder—a crushing despair as I realized that, in their eyes, I wasn't even a person.

To Adrian and his friends, I was nothing more than a toy—something they could mess with however they wanted because they knew there would never be any consequences. My parents would always take his side.

I turned and drifted out of his room.

I didn't want to hear their laughter. I didn't want to know how else they were mocking me.

I was already dead. None of this should have mattered anymore. But why did it still hurt so much?

Later that evening, Mom came to my room again.

This time, she knocked. "Jenny, go take a shower."

But there was only silence.

"If you don't answer me, I'm coming in," Mom said.

There was still no response.

Mom pushed the door open. The room was pitch black.

She reached for the switch on the wall, and the room lit up.

My body was still lying on the bed in the same position as that afternoon. The swelling in my face had gotten worse, and my lips had turned a deep purple. My fingers were curled inward, stiff like claws.

Mom stood in the doorway and glanced over. Her brows furrowed.

"Are you still faking it?" she asked but didn't come any closer.

With her arms crossed, she remained in the doorway, less than ten feet away.

Ten feet.

Her daughter was dead, lying less than ten feet from her.

Mom looked at me for a brief moment before switching the light off and walking away.

"Jenny, I'm warning you. If you don't get up, I'm taking your phone tomorrow." Her voice echoed down the hallway.

She didn't look back or hesitate. She just left.

I hovered above the bed, staring down at my own body.

The swelling had become so severe that I could barely recognize myself.

Mom... Ten feet away, and you still couldn't see me because you never bothered to actually look.

Whenever you looked at me, all you ever showed was impatience. You always thought I was throwing a fit, being dramatic, or faking it. It never crossed your mind that one day, I might actually die.

Even after I did, you still didn't believe it.

At ten o'clock, Dad went to take a shower while Mom watched a reality show in the living room. The canned laughter blared from the television as if the whole house were filled with joy.

Adrian was back in his room, gaming with his friends. His keyboard clattered as he and his friends talked over voice chat.

"Damn it, that sniper's camping again!"

"Come revive me! I'm down!"

"Hahaha! He died again!"

Their laughter drifted through the wall.

I floated in the hallway, listening to it all, and couldn't help thinking how cruelly ironic it was.

Everyone in the house was laughing. Not a single one of them realized that someone was missing—someone who would never come back.

At eleven o'clock, Mom turned off the TV and went to brush her teeth and wash her face.

As she passed my room, she paused and asked, "Jenny, what's your problem?"

She pushed the door open and glanced inside. The light was still on, and I was exactly where I'd been before.

She stood there for a moment and let out a weary sigh. "You really are impossible."

Then she reached in, flipped off the light, and closed the door.

Darkness swallowed the room. My soul stood there, staring at my own lifeless body.

For some reason, I suddenly remembered a post I had seen on social media a few days earlier.

It asked a simple question—"If someone died alone at home, how long would it usually take before anyone noticed?"