Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even a proper disclaimer.

Saturday.

He had kissed her.

It was awkward, unfamiliar, soft, uncomfortably intense, sweet, strange, unnerving and exhilarating.

(It was perfect.)

But a kiss didn't change anything. A kiss didn't make all troubles disappear, and it didn't make her feel happier, no matter what her fast-beating heart and flushed skin might betray. A kiss didn't make it all OK. A kiss didn't matter at all.

(Yet, in a way, it kinda did.)

She bounced in place, unable to contain all the nervous energy that overcame her as she couldn't help but wonder if it would last, if it had been as sincere as it had felt, if it would mean something more than a souvenir from a Saturday spent in detention with strangers. She couldn't contain the smile from forming on her lips, afraid and smug at the same time, insecure and yet content. She tore his patch from his shoulder, the tearing sound making everything except him vanish from her awareness for a moment (her own attempt at a make-over, maybe, or some childish wish to keep something of his to hold on while knowing that she might not be able to hold on to him). She waved at him shyly, happily, uncertainly, soothingly, and slowly left his lingering hold, wishing that maybe he would follow, wishing that she meant as much to him as he meant to her already (but no, she corrected herself, he didn't mean anything to her, and she didn't even like him —she never ever liked anybody, she reminded herself, and she was still invisible because a kiss didn't change a damn thing and she didn't care about any of them at all). She didn't dare hope, but she couldn't help but hoping. As she walked away from him she desperately memorized his eyes, his mouth, his face, his arms and hands and body and hair and ears and feet and legs, but not because it mattered. It didn't. She knew it didn't.

(Memorizing wasn't enough. She wanted more. God, she wanted more.)

As she closed the car door her dad sent a sort-of half-smile her way that may have passed as a greeting, and she felt uncharacteristically self-conscious for a fleeting moment. She turned her face to the window noticing that Andy was talking to his father now, still gazing her way from time to time with the same intense wide-eyed look from earlier. Brian was climbing in his own car and Claire and Bender were talking softly, lost in each other's gaze. She remembered Andy's eyes —earnest, warm, powerful, candid— as he had talked to her, as he had seen her, really seen her as if she was something worth seeing. Something that wasn't invisible.

(But it didn't matter, she kept telling herself, it wouldn't last.)

They drove in silence the whole way, as usual, and as she entered the house her mother paused in her compulsive vegetable chopping to acknowledge her with a half-hearted "hi" and a strained tight-lipped grin. She didn't answer her greeting and she didn't wait to see her father enter the house because it didn't matter whether she did or didn't, none of those things ever mattered anymore anyway. She ran to her bedroom and sighed, caressing her lips. She felt so… alive! Raw, open, energetic, hopeful, dizzy. She needed to draw his face, she needed to do something or she would explode in giggles and hysterical squeals like the giddy high school girl she wasn't supposed to be. She ran to her desk to pick up her charcoals and paused for a moment in front of her mirror, inspecting her new artificial beauty and becoming irrationally incensed; furious that she couldn't be beautiful on her own, furious that he had kissed her, furious that the kiss hadn't lasted longer, furious that he wasn't there holding her, furious that she wished he was, furious that she was so goddamn happy/nervous/angry/scared all of the sudden.

She caressed the patch inside her pocket. It didn't matter. It didn't matter.

(She sort-of wished it mattered.)

She changed her clothes, leaving his blue jacket on —but only because it was soft and comfy (and if the kiss didn't matter anyway, wearing it shouldn't matter either).

Her mother asked her something from downstairs, but she didn't bother answering. They never noticed whether she answered or not. The silence fell back in place after a while, like a well-known gray mist over a city that's too tired to complain about the lack of sun. Silence made her nervous sometimes. Still she didn't dare break it, too timid or too tired to care about it anymore. She quietly considered wearing socks or going barefoot instead, finally opting for the latter with a huff.

(She postponed taking off her headband and removing the new make-up. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about the way Andy's eyes had darkened when she stepped out of her make-over session with Claire. She knew it didn't mean anything. She knew it didn't matter at all.)

She wearily eyed the telephone on her bedside table and debated on plugging it on again or not. It's not like she was expecting his call. It's not as if she had believed him when he had whispered he would call. She knew it wasn't true, and really it didn't matter.

(She plugged it on anyway. Not because of him, just on a whim.)

What about Monday, she wondered again, just like Brian had. Nothing would change, nothing would matter. None of it would matter. Nothing ever mattered, and that was alright, because it was the way things were. But even as she mentally repeated her well-worn mantra, her heart ached with the hope and the pain and the fear and the joy that it might matter. That he would care.

(She cared. She cared so damn much already.)

And maybe that was all it was. She cared —it was enough. It would matter, if only to her. She would care for all of them, even when the others didn't (even when Andy didn't —why would he care? She struggled against that damn growing hope again). She would care and she would always keep them (him) in her heart and in her pocket, her little secret treasure to remember that maybe one time it all had mattered. That maybe she was enough to make things matter.

(That maybe one day she had mattered too.)

She smiled.

(It was a sad smile.)