The Perfect Fantasy
When Ava opened the front door, she was immediately met with the surprised face of her mother, who stood frozen in the hallway with her two-year-old son resting against her shoulder. The toddler was still drowsy from a long nap, his sleepy eyes barely open as he clung to her.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Her mother’s eyes widened as she stared at her daughter, taking in her swollen eyes and the sadness written all over her face.
But before she could ask what was wrong, Ava walked past her without saying a word.
She ignored the worried look on her mother’s face, ignored the questions waiting on her lips, and ignored the sound of her stepfather’s irritated voice coming from the living room.
“Ava?” her mother called softly.
But she didn’t stop.
She went straight to her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
Her stepfather, John, looked toward the hallway with a confused frown. “What’s her problem? Why is she always angry every day after school? If she hates it so much, then maybe she should drop out. She’s lucky she’s still even in high school.”
“Stop it, John,” her mother corrected sharply. She carefully placed her son down on the rug, arranging his toys beside him before walking toward Ava’s room. She knocked once before slowly opening the door.
“I didn’t ask you to come in,” Ava said quietly.
She quickly wiped her cheeks, but it was too late. Her mother had already seen the tears. Ava had been crying for so long that her eyes were red and irritated, making it obvious that whatever happened today had hurt her deeply.
Her mother studied her for a moment before walking over and sitting on the small chair beside Ava’s dressing table.
Unlike most teenage girls’ rooms, Ava’s bedroom was simple and almost empty. No colorful decorations were covering the walls, no shelves filled with pictures of friends, and barely any trace of the pink aesthetic she once begged for when she was younger.
It felt more like a place she existed in rather than a place that belonged to her.
“Did they tease you again today?” her mother asked gently.
Ava managed a faint, bitter smile. It was so much more than teasing. The wound cut deeper than her mother could understand.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom,” Ava whispered. “I just need to be alone.”
She turned away and lay down on her bed, facing the wall.
Her mother fell silent for a moment, then spoke with quiet determination.
“Ava, you only have one more year left of high school. After that, you won’t have to see those people anymore. You can leave. You can go anywhere you want. You could move to Los Angeles for college, be closer to your cousins, start over somewhere new.” Her voice softened. “But until then, you can’t let people who don’t matter make you forget who you are.”
Ava squeezed her eyes shut.
“You’re smart. You’re beautiful. You’re a good person.”
“Mom, please.” Ava’s voice cracked as she turned toward her, eyes blazing with fresh tears, “There is nothing beautiful about me… I have stupid curly hair that never looks right. I’m too skinny. I don’t look like the girls at school, and I hate that I look this way.”
Ava’s voice shook as she tried to hold herself together. “And today… today I embarrassed myself in front of everyone…I told a boy I liked him.” She looked away, ashamed.
“And he laughed.”
Her mother stayed quiet, allowing her to continue.
“Turns out he was only being nice to me because he felt sorry for me. Because I had no friends. Because I’m the weird girl who sits alone and has no life.” Her voice became smaller. “My life is so pathetic, Mom. It’s just… pathetic.”
She turned back around, refusing to let her mother see her cry anymore.
At midnight, Ava lay awake on her bed, staring at the glow of her phone screen. She kept replaying the pictures from earlier—the party she wasn’t invited to, the laughter she wasn’t part of, the friendships she wished she had.
Everyone else seemed to have a life, everyone else had someone and she had nothing, no friends to call, no one to text, no parties.
No memories she could look back on and smile about.
She was about to graduate high school, and somehow, she felt like she had never truly lived.
“Who graduated high school without smashing at least once??”, Her distant cousin had once told her.
The sound of another argument echoed from outside her bedroom door. Her mother and John were fighting again.
She wasn’t surprised, It happened almost every night.
The raised voices, the accusations, the silence afterward, it had become normal.
But tonight, everything felt heavy, suffocating.
Ava grabbed her phone again and opened social media, hoping mindless videos would distract her. She scrolled through endless clips, watching people laugh and enjoy their lives, but nothing made her smile.
Then an advertisement appeared on her screen, bright and insistent: Are you lonely? Create your AI boyfriend and design your dream relationship.
“AI boyfriend?”, She paused, a skeptical huff escaping her lips. “Probably some stupid app”.
It sounded ridiculous; she scrolled past it, then, a few seconds later, she found herself scrolling back up. She didn’t know why, maybe because she was tired of feeling alone, maybe because she just wanted someone who would listen.
With a small sigh, she tapped on the advertisement, maybe it could distract her, the moment the app opened, her phone vibrated in her hand.
The screen brightened, revealing dozens of different characters waiting to be created.
A message appeared.
“Are you ready to feel better? Create the person you’ve always dreamed of”.
She hesitated only a moment before diving in, spending the quiet hours of the night carefully shaping every detail, someone who would listen, someone who would understand, someone who would never leave.
She had no idea, as she finally drifted toward sleep, that she had just unlocked something far beyond a simple distraction, no idea that the person she was creating wasn’t just a fantasy.
She was about to bring her deepest desire to life.
