Less Invisible Read online

  Less Invisible

  Emma Rose

  Author’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Disclaimer: This book contains descriptions of self-harm, eating disorders, and mild sexual events if any of those offend or trigger you, please do not read this book. Additionally, please note that the author is in no way endorsing or encouraging the behaviors depicted in this book.

  Contents:

  Chapter One ...………………………………………………5

  Chapter Two ………………….……………………………27

  Chapter Three ……………………………………………..37

  Chapter Four ………………………………………………55

  Chapter Five ……………………………………………….60

  Chapter Six ………………………………………………...62

  Chapter Seven …………………………………………….65

  Chapter Eight ……………………………………………...77

  Chapter Nine ……………………………………………….84

  Chapter Ten ………………………………………………..94

  Chapter Eleven …………………………………………….99

  Chapter Twelve ……………………………………...……103

  Chapter Thirteen …………………………………….……107

  Chapter Fourteen ………………………………………...113

  Chapter Fifteen …………………………………………...127

  Chapter Sixteen …………………………………………..145

  Chapter Seventeen ……………………………………….150

  Chapter Eighteen …………………………………………156

  Chapter Nineteen …………………………………………160

  Chapter Twenty …………………………………………...164

  Chapter Twenty-One ……………………………………..167

  Chapter Twenty-Two ……………………………………..173

  Chapter Twenty-Three …………………………………...177

  CHAPTER ONE: JEMMA

  I am invisible.

  No, not like a superhero or a ninja.

  Like a person, you've seen every day of your life, but never really noticed.

  My name is Jemma, and I am homeless.

  About a year ago, some interviewer with a camera asked me what it is like to be homeless. I wanted to give him a good answer, but I didn't know what to say. "I've lived on the streets my whole life," I said. "Homelessness is my normal."

  My first memories are of me and my Momma staying in a cheap Brooklyn apartment with a man named Steve. I remember when I was five, there was a big fight between Momma and Steve. Steve called Momma a whore and the two of us moved out onto the streets.

  I had just started kindergarten at that time. I loved going to school because it meant that I got at least one hot meal a day. Plus, it was fun to be around kids my age. I never had playmates before.

  I'll always remember my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Barnes. She was the first person besides my mother who showed me kindness. The way she smiled at me when I entered the classroom made me feel like I was more than just a dirty girl with a broke mother. Every Friday, she would hand me a brown bag filled with snacks. The first couple of times she did this, I could hardly believe it. "This is better than Christmas!" I thought.

  "Now remember," Ms. Barnes would whisper as she handed me the bag, "This is to keep your tummy full on Saturday and Sunday. Don't give it away to nobody and make sure you eat it all up."

  I would just nod and smile as I looked up into her brown eyes and took the bag into my own small hands. Man, how I loved that woman. She had curly, brown hair and an enchanting Southern drawl. I never heard her yell at a student... even when a little boy drew all over her pink dress with a black Sharpie marker. A few times, I had to stop myself from wishing she were my own mother.

  I made a best friend in kindergarten; his name was Oliver. We met on the first day. I saw him crying on the playground because one of the older kids called him a loser. They made fun of the way he talked with an Irish accent.

  Even though I hadn't turned six yet, I knew what it felt like to be sad and alone and to feel like nobody cared. I walked over to where he was sitting in the corner of the basketball court. He was sitting with his back up against the metal fence crying into his knees. I sat down next to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I suppose I didn't know to be shy yet.

  "Why are you crying?" I asked.

  Oliver moved out from under my arm and scooted away from me. He eyed me up suspiciously and with distrust.

  "Why do you care?" he sniffled. His blue eyes were wet and there were still tears on his rosy cheeks.

  "Because my mommy says you got to be nice to other people," I answered matter-of-factly.

  "I don't have a mummy," Oliver said quietly, picking at his Spider-Man shoes.

  "Well, that's alright," I said, "cause I don't have a daddy. That makes us even."

  Oliver paused for a second and stopped pulling the Velcro on his sneakers. Then, he turned to face me and smiled.

  I smiled back at him. I was so excited that someone, besides my Momma, might actually like me.

  "Do you want to be friends?" he asked with a boldness and sincerity only children have.

  I still remember how warm and fuzzy I felt inside when he said that. My heart felt like it was going to burst from joy inside my chest.

  "Yes, let's be best friends," I said reaching over to give Oliver a huge hug.

  Oliver hugged me even harder back and from that day forward we became practically inseparable.

  We got along real good because we understood what it felt like to be different and what it is was like to feel lonely. Sometimes, kids would ask if we were twins because we both had the same bright blue eyes and dark blonde hair. Until his growth spurt in the seventh grade, we were close to the same height. The only difference was Oliver Connors was a trouble-maker while I was a rule follower.

  When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was to please people. I wanted my Momma to be proud of me, so I worked hard in school. I wanted my teachers to like me so I would offer to stay late and clean up the classroom. I wanted the other girls in school to like me, so I would give them compliments and pretend like I knew what television shows or boy bands they were talking about. All I really wanted was for people to like me.

  Oliver was the opposite. He didn't care what anybody thought of him or at least that's the way he acted. If someone told him to do something, it would make him want to do the opposite. He was never mean, but he loved to pull pranks on people whether they liked it or not.

  Unlike myself, Oliver never did his homework but was always able to get the highest marks in class. Teachers found him extremely frustrating because of this. What made it worse was that he spent all his time in class doodling funny caricatures of the staff, but the big trouble didn't come until Oliver was a teenager.

  I guess you could say sometimes Oliver was a bad influence on me. Like the time in second grade he convinced me to hide behind the bleachers during gym class and play Pokémon cards because he didn't feel like running that day.

  Oliver grabbed my hand in the middle of the tag game we were playing when the teacher was distracted by a girl who had twisted her ankle and we dashed away to our hiding spot unnoticed. We
sat down criss-cross applesauce on the dusty, dirty wooden floor and smiled confidently at each other.

  "We did it!" Oliver whispered, giving me a high five.

  "I know," I giggled gleefully. This was probably the most rebellious thing I had done at six and a half, but it was also one of the most fun.

  "Alright, alright let's play," Oliver said, dealing out the cards.

  Unsurprisingly, the gym teacher never noticed we were missing from the forty-person tag game. Things were going great until we became so engrossed in our game of Pokémon and in making up ridiculous knock-knock jokes that we didn't notice when the rest of the class lined up and went back to our classroom and a new group of fourth-graders came in for their gym class.

  "Ollie, our class is gone!" I scream-whispered to my friend while peeking through the bleachers at a rather rough game of flag football.

  "It's fine, it's fine. We'll just sneak back up to our room when this class leaves and Mr. Johnson goes on lunch," Oliver reasoned.

  "Okay, okay," I agreed, trying to reassure myself that we weren't going to get in trouble and that Oliver's plan was a good one.

  We continued our game of Pokémon and in a few minutes, we were back to laughing again.

  I guess at one point we laughed a little too loudly and the gym teacher must have noticed us.

  "Hey, what are you two doing behind there?" he asked sternly.

  My eyes widened and I looked over at Oliver fearfully. I hoped he would be able to get us out of this. He had all the answers before; he better have some now.

  Oliver looked back at me the same way I looked at him. Apparently, he was just as dumbstruck as I was.

  "Well?" the teacher asked again with rising frustration, "Come on, you two. Get out of there," Mr. Johnson demanded while we stood up quietly.

  We walked slowly out from our hiding place. I stood slightly behind Oliver. We both kept our heads down.

  I thought for sure Mr. Johnson was going to send us to the principal's office, but when he saw Oliver sniffling in remorse, he must have taken pity on us. No one could ever really stay mad at Oliver for long. He was just too cute.

  Instead of sending us to visit the principal, Mr. Johnson gave us a short lecture and a warning never to hide or skip class again and sent us back to our homeroom.

  "I can't believe we got away with that," I told Oliver as we climbed the steps up from the ground floor to the second-grade classrooms.

  "We were lucky," Oliver agreed.

  "I'm never doing that again," I proclaimed, crossing my arms.

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, I am and you're going to do it with me," Oliver announced in defiance to my declaration.

  I furrowed my eyebrows. I wanted to defend myself, but somehow I knew what he said was true. I was a follower, not a leader and Oliver was my best friend, my only friend. At six years old, I would have probably jumped off a bridge with him if he held my hand and we counted to three.

  By the time we were nine years old, things changed. I had grown up a little bit and although Oliver was still my best friend, I would no longer do anything he told me to do. The first time we had a real fight was when Oliver asked me to run away with him in the fourth grade.

  "Jemma, I have the most brilliant, wonderful idea," he said one spring day as we were walking home from school to hang out at his apartment together.

  "What is it?" I asked, excitedly. Oliver had a habit of hyping everything up, but whenever he was excited about something I couldn't help but be excited too.

  "It is so brilliant, but you have to promise you're going to keep it a secret."

  "I promise," I said solemnly. I was dead serious about my promise too. Oliver was like my brother. We had a rule that we would never tell on each other and we always kept our secrets.

  "Let's go to the park," Oliver suggested. "I can tell you there."

  "Won't your dad wonder where you're at?" I asked.

  "Doesn't your mom wonder where you're at every day?" he retorted.

  My mother knew I went to Oliver's every day after school and she always waited for me to meet her in the same place in Central Park every night. Plus, even at nine, I knew she had bigger things to worry about than my constant whereabouts. Don't get me wrong, I knew my mother loved me. I never doubted that, but some days I felt like she barely knew where she was let alone where I was all the time.

  "She knows where I am," I responded defensively giving Oliver a playful but firm push on the shoulder. I loved my Momma and even though I knew she wasn't perfect, I wasn't going to let anyone say she wasn't.

  Oliver laughed. I knew his comment wasn't mean-spirited. It was just the only comeback he had. "I know, I just really want us to go to the park. Don't worry about what my dad will say. He's my dad not yours anyway, what's it to you?"

  "But won't you get in trouble?" I asked.

  "It's worth it. Come on. Race me to the park!" Oliver exclaimed, taking off.

  We were only about one block away from the park, so I laughed and sprinted to catch up with him carefully dodging the people who stood in my way.

  Oliver was fast, but I was more determined. "I won!" I said collapsing into a patch of soft, green grass under a tall oak tree. Oliver was only a few feet behind me but out of breath. He stuck his tongue out at me and plopped his backpack down on the ground defeated.

  "How are you so fast?" he asked, shaking his head.

  "Why are you so slow?" I teased.

  Oliver rolled his eyes and laid down next to me with a sigh.

  For a second, we both lay looking up at the blue sky and the bright green leaves on the tree above us. The air was fresh, and you could smell the springiness in it. The quiet buzz of the city was audible, but I ignored it to listen to the chirping birds above us and the chatter of the old folks strolling the park in the afternoon sun.

  "Are you ready to hear the secret?" Oliver whispered after a moment, turning his head to face mine.

  I twisted my head to look him in the eyes and nodded simply. Our faces were less than a foot away from each other, but I guess that wasn't close enough for Oliver so he leaned in, cupped his hand around my ear, and whispered, "I want you to run away with me."

  I sat up in surprise and gave Oliver a confused look. Oliver pushed himself up to look me in the eyes. "Isn't it the best idea you've ever heard?" he asked, beaming.

  "No, no it's not Oliver. Why would you want to do that?" I asked, shaking my head.

  The joy in Oliver's face disappeared. I guess he wasn't expecting me to dislike his idea.

  "It would be an adventure, Jemma. Think about it. You and I, we could hop on a bus and go somewhere fun like Disney World or Ireland or, or California, anywhere! We wouldn't have to go to school. Nobody would be able to tell us what to do. We could do whatever we want."

  "You're an idiot," I said very seriously.

  Oliver turned red. I had hurt his feelings. "I am not!"

  "You can't take a bus to Ireland. Don't you know that? You're in fourth grade, Oliver."

  "I know that," Oliver said quietly looking down at his hands which were now pulling out pieces of grass. "I just thought it could be fun," he shrugged.

  His sincerity and genuine desire to spend time with me made me feel bad for reacting so harshly, even though I thought his idea was incredibly stupid.

  I reached over to grab his hand and he looked up at me with his puppy dog eyes. "It would be fun," I admitted, "but we can't, you know that."

  Oliver nodded. I smiled at him gently. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  "Don't be sorry. It was a dumb idea," Oliver mumbled.

  "No, no - it wasn't," I assured him.

  "Maybe someday when we're older?" Oliver asked hopefully.

  "If you still want to run away when we're grown-ups and if you have a better plan, I promise I'll run away with you, Ollie," I grinned.

  "Pinky promise?" Oliver asked, holding out his pinky.

  "Pinky promise," I said, interlocking m
y pinky with his.

  "Come on," I said standing up and reaching down to pull him up with me. "Let's go on an adventure right now."

  Oliver eyed me up suspiciously, "but where will we go?"

  "Let's go to the playground. You can be Peter Pan and I can be Wendy," I suggested. We had recently watched the movie as a class reward in school, so it was still fresh in my brain.

  "Okay! And the pigeons can be pirates!"

  "Yes!" I agreed as we started skipping over to the playground.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon in a world of our own. First, we were Peter Pan and Wendy, but after we made Captain Hook and his gang walk the plank, we decided to become pirates ourselves.

  When that became dull, Oliver forced me to pretend we were Spider-Man and Spider-Woman. We had to defeat an invisible villain he made up dubbed Dr. Evil. This doctor tried to put children in school all day and night and never let them do anything fun or see their families. Worst of all, the only subject Dr. Evil allowed kids to learn was math and he only let them eat meatloaf for every meal. (As you might have guessed, meatloaf was Oliver's least favorite food and math was his least favorite subject.)

  Later, I made Oliver pretend he was Prince Charming and I was Rapunzel. He had to rescue me from my tower aka the top of the rock wall before we were able to live happily ever after in his castle aka the treehouse.

  We had so much fun that day letting our imaginations run wild that we lost track of time.

  "Oliver, you better go home. Your dad is probably worried about you," I said as I noticed the sun setting.

  "Oh yeah! He probably is. I better go, I didn't realize how late it was," Oliver said, hurrying off.

  "Bye, Oliver," I said as I watched him swing his backpack over his shoulders and dash off toward home.

  "Bye, Jemma. See ya tomorrow," he waved.

  I watched him scurry off from the swing I was on. I felt happy to have a friend like Oliver. After he was out of my sight, I closed my eyes and muttered a quick prayer, "Dear Lord, thank you for giving me Oliver," I said before jumping off the swing and wandering to find my mother.