Drowning In Bitterness - (1) Seen
Part 1 of 7 - TOC
Seen
There she sat, the blonde woman, typing away with a precision that bordered on surgical. Not a single typo to be found, and not one strand of hair out of place. The words came at a furious pace—sure, deliberate. Click-clack, punch-punch. She smiled as she wrote. She ate as she wrote.
“To the author who sent me this hoping a little polite flattery would help the review—I’m giving it two stars. Save your gratitude. Give me a plot that actually holds water. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
She read through what she’d written. Good. No—actually superb. Sharp enough to sting. Kind of witty, too. The author would be furious, might even block her. But it didn’t matter. Plenty of hungry authors out there.
One more line. Something that would stick. A paper cut that never stopped aching:
“Next up is Whitmore. That is—whatever’s left of him. #HonestReview #NoFilter”
She did one last check. Sure, it was honest. “No filter” might be pushing it a bit, but fine. The important thing was that people would talk. She’d learned that by now. People talking was the only thing that mattered.
She hit Publish.
Nothing happened.
The screen refreshed; the small, efficient circle spun and spun, then vanished. Her words sat there, right beneath the AI avatar, and both suddenly looked oddly exposed. Like a set of unwanted furniture dumped on the sidewalk. She thought of that old joke about the indie writer who’d been robbed. The thieves took everything—except his books. Heh.
One minute passed.
Then two.
No likes. No comments. Zero views.
Then, finally—a notification. The text was small, matter-of-fact, and completely undecorated:
Vane has seen your post.
She stared at the screen until the words began to blur, then snap into focus again, as if for a moment they’d lost confidence before deciding—no, they meant exactly what they said. Her mouth went completely dry.
Everyone knew Vane never took a fight into public. That was, in fact, the most unsettling thing about him. He waited. He watched. And then, when just enough time had passed for his prey to think the danger was over—that’s when he wrote.
She refreshed the page.
“Seen” was still there. Small. Cold. Like a fingerprint on glass nobody had bothered to wipe away.
No indicator that he was typing. No reply. No fight.
Just the bare, undeniable fact that he’d read it. That he’d filed it away somewhere.
She snapped the laptop shut with more force than strictly necessary, as if the sharp crack could shatter the silence that had settled over the room like a layer of dust.
It didn’t.
If anything, the room seemed strangely louder now. The refrigerator hummed its monotone, irritating little song. The pipes ticked. Her own breathing had gone thin and shallow, and she hated it intensely.
She tried to convince herself she didn’t care. Vane meant nothing. Just a failed writer with delusions of his own relevance. Her friend Polly used to say it, usually after the third glass of wine, waving her hand as if to chase away smoke. “He means nothing, darling. He really doesn’t.”
She told herself a great many things.
Then she opened the laptop again.
Refreshed.
Refreshed.
Refreshed.