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She's been watching her, from a distance, admiring her, detailing her: pretty fuchsia lamp, with a book club and boring friends (but she isn't). The pretty girl with a constant glow, the pretty girl she can't talk to.
Lately those thoughts haunt her, overwhelm her, without an exact why, they're just there, impassive, suffocating. Connie is the ghost girl who can always scare others, but what scares her? Maybe that emotional out of control that she doesn't understand, something stuck in her being like a stake in the heart of a vampire. Is it normal?, she thinks, she asks, who gives her the answer? No one, what a such tragedy.
She wants to get closer, she says, she wants to talk to her, she thinks about it, she plans to, she tries, but then she looks at her, she's looking at her, and the confidence fades in abysmal chunks, she's looking at her, she repeats, the security slips away like dust between fingers, like ghosts behind walls. And Connie walks away. And Brightney doesn't understand.
"You alright, Connie?"
"Yeah, yeah, all good."
She lies.
"Are you sure? We can talk to Sprout and Cosmo, maybe they have something to help you..."
"I'm fine, Brightney." Connie smiles, Brightney doesn't believe her.
And it's not that she's shy, but something in her quickens, something she doesn't understand, beyond anything she could imagine.
In the end Brightney gives her her space, but not before giving her a hug (which felt like heaven itself, like butterflies in some beatific meadow, like-) and telling her to look for her in case of emergency.
(It wasn't so bad after all.)
[...]
Connie thinks her stomach churning is healed, and she tries again. She's close, again, she's with those mask twins, and she sees her, approaches her, too close, suddenly, and she smiles, and, oh, for all that's good, it's the most beautiful smile anyone could ever replicate. She must come closer, she needs to talk to her.
"Are you feeling better now? You really had me worried."
("She was worried. I'm important to her. I'm really important.")
"Oh, yeah, yeah… don’t worry about it."
Brightney smiles at her, compassionate, her eyes not seeming to know exactly where to look, could she get tired of seeing her smile?
"I can't do that, you matter."
VWas that her heart pumping? Does she have a heart at least? Does she have blood that dilates in her cheeks and produces that thing they call "flushing"? Is that what she feels? A heart?
What cheap poetry, Gigi would totally be teasing her right now.
"T-Thank you... You also... matter."
Life can be so, so beautiful occasionally.
("Dazzle, should we go?"
"Please".)
[...]
And even though the second attempt turned out better, it's not enough, not yet.
So she decides to try again, once, third time's the charm, she wants to believe, she wants her brain to absorb the self-imposed confidence so she doesn't have to disappear behind the wall in an attempt to evade the intricate web of her heart. She has even asked for help from Gigi, who has lent her her lucky coin.
("Are you sure that thing works?"
"Never doubt luck!")
It was a matter of trust, and she flipped the coin over her hand, not even seeing the result when it was already next to the lamp.
"Hey."
"Hi, Connie!"
"..."
"..."
"Hey."
"Hehe, hi, Connie."
And she deeply regretted trusting.
Well, that was pathetic, maybe she could sink back into some depressive doldrums while watching bad movies and eating ice cream until her liver froze to death. She'd also toss Gigi's coin somewhere recondite, she'd come up with a clever excuse later.
"Uh, Connie..."
She spoke to her again, the tone she used was too tender to explain, also biting her lip. Would she mock her? No, Brightney was too good for that, but what else could she expect?
"Yeah, Brightney?"
"Would you like to read with me this book? It's about monsters and ghosts, I thought you might like it?"
Oh... OH... Well, maybe she wouldn't have to cry that night.
"OF COURse-! I mean- Yeah, of course."
And Brightney laughs, cute, pretty, just plain beautiful, and a bunch more cheesiness that she would obviously omit from telling Gigi when she asks if her lucky coin worked.
Connie squeezes the coin hidden in a pocket of her shirt, luck was a little crazy, but it worked. Maybe it wasn't necessary to hide in some posse that time.
(Oh, and she wouldn't mention to Gigi she was almost crying over a ghost book either.)