Well, it's been a day, and I did say I would explain how this mess happened. So here it goes. 

I was sixteen, and too happy. My best friend, who I will not name as I have with Dianne, was with me. Since I won't name him, I'll give him a code name for your benefit, like mine. Yes, of course my name isn't Jinx. I am simply Jinxed. Simply invisible. 

So we will call my best friend Cody, for that is the type of play on words that Dianne would certainly appreciate. 

And so, I was young, foolish, and with Cody. Cody was very funny, and very clever. He wore large, square, black-rimmed glasses, and had a smattering of freckles on his high cheekbones and sharp nose. His eyes were grey, but with the remarkable ability to reflect every colour he saw.

Besides being funny, good-looking, and clever, he was on a track team that he had snuck onto with me. I used to do 100-meter sprints, and he pole vaulting. We were so good that the coach was too afraid to lose us; thus we did not have to enrol. I will explain shortly why we could not enrol, so bear with me. And besides being an athlete, he had the perilous tendency to tinker.

Yes, tinker. 

He would find whatever horridly frightening gadget and charge it with some deadly acid or the other, and thus have created a murder weapon for an insane child. 

I did say he was clever? I meant he was a diabolical genius. 

One day, my dear Cody made a potion. I was hesitant to drink it. We do live in the 21st century, after all. But he insisted that no harm would come to me, and that it would only make me invisible for a few hours. I asked, "Why is that? You mean it to be that way?"

He palmed the back of his neck and supplied, "No, I'm just quite certain it won't give the desired week, since it's only Trial 001."

It turned out that his experiment worked too well. I wouldn't have drunk the godforsaken thing if I didn't know why he wanted to be invisible. So I will explain to you why we could not properly enrol in the track team, and why we both wanted to be invisible to the naked eye.

The two of us were orphans. No one had adopted us; one an eloquent and cynical freak, the other a diabolical tinkering genius. So, when we turned 12, we became permanent residents of the orphanage. The caretaker was the meanest woman to ever live, crueler than Cruella de Vil. And so I shall call her Cruella de Vil (I have always loved The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith).

We sometimes imagined that she made us clean the chimney so that she could use a flamethrower to roast us alive for dinner. We had to wake up every morning at 4:30 and make the entire orphanage shine, inside and out, even the driveway and sidewalk. And if it already shone, then we were to make it sparkle. So on went the cruelty. 

One time, in spite, we covered the place with sticky notes that read: SHINY. Cruella yelled at Cody and I so loudly that the whole country could hear. We weren't allowed to sleep or eat for 2 days. The water we drank in those 2 days was salted, so we had to boil it before drinking, and it was also the middle of summer. Needless to say that those were the longest 2 days of my life. 

We hated de Vil very much, and she returned the regard wholeheartedly. Thus, we wanted to be invisible so that we could run away somewhere in the mountains. Our plan was to live in a cave that we had once explored together. We would fend for ourselves and each other, like great adventurers, like characters in books we stole from the hidden library in the orphanage. For de Vil hid all of the wonderful books in hopes that we would remain stupid. Ha. What an idiot. She should have known that I always get what I want.

Our plan was childish and foolish, but regardless I drank the potion. 4 years later, I'm still invisible to all save for Cody and Dianne. Cody, when we realized that I had no reflection for more than "a few hours", told me to go and live in that cave, or wherever I wanted, because I had uncanny, sheer luck. I agreed, of course. But I lied when I said I would leave. I loved my best friend too much to leave him like that. 

You must know that knowing one's best friend is like being in love. 

I left the orphanage to live in an unoccupied room in the apartment building where Dianne lives. Cody would be very irritated if he knew I was still in the city, and that I checked on him every day. 

So I hide from my best friend, who is lonely, and wait for Dianne to speak with me. What a conundrum. 

That is all for today, I must check on Cody now, and I don't exactly like the idea of missing the last bus.

©Nightingale