Invisible

There are some people who work all their days, all their hours and all their minutes just to make it to their dreams. They never rest and they never take a few minutes to look inside themselves to see if this is what they really want.

Nat Butler was one of these people.

She worked and she worked, all for a dream.

It started off as her own dream; the success of her brother. She just wanted to see him on stage doing what Gavin Butler did best. She was the supportive younger sister who went through everything to get him where he stood. But after a while her very own dream morphed into that of a whole band. Every one of the six band members wanted the same thing: the success and the thrill of a life on the road and on a stage.

So Nat ended up working for six rather than one.

She did everything that was expected of her. She attended every show with almost religious dedication, she sold and designed t-shirt after t-shirt, she convinced fans to buy their EP and relentlessly took live photos of the boys for their website. She even dropped her prestigious place at Cardiff University to be there for her brother and the band, something that no body knew about, everyone else was far too busy getting the 'music out there'.

Despite all her heart wrenching dedication, Nat had always remained invisible.

People seemed to see straight through her onto the other side. They walked on by not taking her presence into account and never opening their eyes wide enough to know her. Invisible was not a shade that suited Nat. It brought her to tears sometimes. Her state on this earth was one of unnecessary dedication. She felt that the band could make it with or without her support. Sometimes she was tempted to throw away everything and just do what she wanted to do, yet when she saw her brother on stage everything seemed to pay off.

When fans poured over candid pictures of the band on the Internet, and came across a pretty girl with an honest smile and the brightest of eyes, she was dismissed as 'the girl who always seems to be on tour with The Blackout'.

These comments were often the last straw for Nat.

"I'm invisible Aled! No one knows who I am and after all this shit that I've done for them!" Nat would cry into Aled's shoulder, soaking his jumpers every time she felt the need to let everything out.

Aled was the only one whom she seemed to trust. She was grateful for having met him on the Tough Guy Tour that The Blackout did together with their long time friends Kids In Glass Houses. The boy with the funny hair and equally odd dress sense was the only person who knew exactly how much Nat had sacrificed for the band. It annoyed him that her dedication was something that the boys in her brother's band took for granted.

Nat was the presence in the wings of the stages that The Blackout graced for nights on end. Nobody seemed to take her presence into account, but despite this they knew she was there. But they never acknowledged her. This sometimes hurt Aled more than it did Nat.

It was Aled who had always encouraged Nat to go back to the place that she wanted to be in more than anything else, he knew she was homesick. He knew she missed Cardiff and she missed the sea. Nat hated being on the road cooped up in a van occupied solely by boys, who had little understand of the rules of hygiene. It frustrated her to no end that nobody would listen to her opinion and she was sick to death of being dismissed as 'Gavin's cute little sister'. Her suggestions went unheard, and had they been taken into account a lot more things would have gone right for the boys.

The decision to leave was made the day when the sound tech asked for the girl who always did the merch.

"Anyone know where whatshername is?"

Whatshername.

Nat, who was stood at the back of the venue, had heard every word that dropped from the sound tech's mouth. The white-hot anger that had spread through her finally allowed her to act on an emotion that would actually drive her to a satisfying end result.

With the passion of a mad woman Nat marched to the van, threw her stuff into her massive weekend bag, pulled a plain black hoodie over her vintage Iron Maiden t-shirt and walked away from the van, feeling suddenly far more free and light than she had done in months.

Before Nat had even managed to walk out of the parking lot, situated behind the venue of the evening, shouts stopped her tracks.

"Nat where the bloody hell do you think you're going?"

She prayed to god that it wasn't her brother, it was a confrontation that she could easily live without.

With a sigh on her lips Nat turned around, dumping the heavy bag she was holding on the floor. It fell with a loud thud that seemed to echo around the parking lot. To Nat's surprise it wasn't her brother who was stood in front of her with confusion written on his face. It was Nat's face that held the confusion, as her gaze fell upon Rhys who was slightly out of breath, having obviously just run out of the venue.

"Where are you going?" Rhys asked again with an angry tone to his voice, not beating about the bush.

"Home," Nat simply stated and shot Rhys a slightly hostile gaze. She hated how he was preventing her from finally going home, she just wanted to leave. She just wanted to go back to Cardiff and leave everything else behind her.

"You can't do that," Rhys countered hotly.

"Oh and why not?" Nat shrieked slightly; her temper rising with each extra minute that she was being forced to spend in the empty parking lot, in some god forsaken town whose name didn't matter either way.

"We need you."

Those three words spoke volumes. They acknowledged everything that Nat had been working for. She was needed. Someone needed her. But it was something that Nat was not willing to take in at once, as her slightly stubborn nature refused to believe the honesty of those words.

"You don't need me Rhys, none of you need me I've always been invisible to you all!" Nat cried throwing her hands in the air in a motion of defeat. She was about to pick her bag up again and walk away, but Rhys beat her to it. He had a firm grip on her bag and no matter how hard Nat tugged or pulled his limpet grip did not slacken.

"You've never been invisible Nat. Not to me."

It was a statement that shocked Nat to the core and she let go of her bag as if it had burned her.

"What did you just say?" Nat asked again in complete disbelief, not wanting to accept these words that had fallen from the mouth of the boy whom she had fallen in love with from a distance.

"I've always seen you Nat. You were never invisible."

He gently connected his lips to her own, and suddenly Nat felt alive. She was here; someone had seen her. She was no longer a nobody. She was the girl that Rhys Lewis had fallen in love with, head over heels, and nothing was going to change that any time soon.