Sam did his best to avoid the humiliation of encountering Cindy at and around school, but encounters were inevitable. He managed to avoid eye contact most of the time. Without seeing her eyes, it was at least possible that she hadn’t noticed him, and if she hadn’t noticed him, he could just as well have not been there at all. It wasn’t invisibility, but it would have to suffice.
Invisible or not, it was better not to face the scorn of her steel eyes. He feared they could see through him more sharply than he could see into himself. It wasn’t much of a stretch, as invisible as he was to himself at times.
Even without the sting of her eyes, he would feel a sharp slice in his back immediately after they would cross paths. He would glance to his side and see himself lying face-down and spread wide with two bloody arrow shafts sunk into his back; stone dead, like some sorry demon intercepted by a bow-armed archangel.
Cindy—seeming to be without a bow—and whoever else happened to be nearby would walk curiously over to find his corpse. They look unsurprised. They might just as well have come across a stuck tomato: “Who left their twice-stuck tomato laying here in the corridor, bleeding slowly out onto the concrete? Such a waste, and the mess is bound to get worse before the janitor comes around.”
It was somehow pacifying to see himself there, merely disgusting; freed of the guilt and scorn, and to hear her, his personal judge, approaching with the indifferent crowd. She would make the perfect executioner. She could do it, and her hands would be clean.