Unseen
Sabrina Carpenter x fem!reader — ANGST
—
You were quiet the entire ride home.
The car was too cold, the city too loud, and she looked too perfect — glowing under the flash of a hundred cameras, while you stood off to the side like a bodyguard no one hired.
You hadn’t said a word since the event.
You didn’t need to. The ache had been building for weeks, maybe months.
You weren’t invisible. You were seen, constantly — just not as you.
The moment the apartment door shut behind you, you exhaled like it was the first breath you were allowed all night.
Sabrina slipped off her heels like a ritual. She looked exhausted, but still beautiful in that unreachable way — the kind of beautiful that doesn’t sweat under lights or crack in mirrors. She turned to you, smiling softly.
“You were so quiet tonight. You okay?”
You almost said “yeah.”
Almost.
Instead, you sat down on the edge of the bed and whispered,
“I can’t do this anymore.”
She stilled, slowly lowering the strap of her dress from her shoulder, unsure.
“What… what do you mean?”
Your throat was tight, and your hands felt cold.
You couldn’t look at her when you said it.
“I can’t be the girl in your shadows anymore.”
Silence.
It stretched between you like a fault line — one step, and it would all fall apart.
Sabrina’s voice came out quiet and disbelieving.
“Shadows? Baby, I never meant—”
“I know.”
You cut her off gently. Not angry — just tired. Tired in a way that had nothing to do with tonight, and everything to do with the nights before it.
“But that’s where I am. I’m the quiet one next to you in pictures. The one fans make conspiracies about. The one interviewers pretend not to see when they ask you about love songs you clearly wrote about me.”
She opened her mouth — maybe to defend herself, maybe to apologize — but nothing came out. So you kept going.
“I used to know who I was, Sab. Before the spotlight got close enough to burn.”
Her face changed then — softened, cracked. She looked like she’d just realized she’d stepped on something living.
“I thought you were okay with keeping things private,” she whispered.
“I was. At first. But there’s a difference between privacy and erasure.”
That hit her. You could see it in the way her shoulders dropped, the way her jaw clenched like she was holding back something sharp and emotional and real.
“You’re not erased,” she said. “You’re the most important part of my life. Everything I do, every song, every tour, every smile I force through—half of it’s because I get to come home to you.”
You finally met her eyes.
“But no one knows that. And I’m not sure if I do anymore either.”
You stood. The air felt thin.
“I love you, Sabrina. God, I love you so much it hurts. But I need to be someone, too. Not your shadow. Not your secret. Not your pretty, silent girl on the edge of the carpet.”
She looked at you like she wanted to beg you to stay.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she nodded — slow and broken — like she understood something she wished she didn’t have to.
“What do you need?”
Your voice cracked.
“Space. To find myself again.”
Sabrina stepped closer, gently cupping your cheek. Her thumb brushed a tear you didn’t know had fallen.
“Then I’ll give it to you,” she whispered. “Even if it breaks me.”
And the worst part?
You knew it would.
For both of you.










