I am right in front of him. I wave. I lean over so I am about an inch from his face. I exhale. He moves back a little.
“Can you see me?” I ask aloud.
Now he startles.
“Am I here?” I ask.
He’s looking around in every direction. The couples are too far away. He has no idea where the voice is coming from.
“You can’t see me, can you?”
“What the hell?” he grunts. Still looking around.
“But I’m right here,” I tell him. Then I lay my hand on his shoulder. Concentrate.
He cries out.
I pull back. He’s up on his feet now. Everyone’s staring at him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. We’re at the stop I need.
I leave the train.
* * *
I am in the middle of Times Square. Lit like the inside of a video game. The crowds are bigger now—couples, yes, but also groups of twelve, twenty, thirty. Even after midnight. Teenagers crash playfully into each other. Fathers carry sleeping daughters in their arms. Cameras flash.
I want one person to see me. Out of these hundreds. Out of these thousands. I just want one of them to ask me the time. To ask me what I’m doing. Make eye contact. Dodge when it looks like I’m going to be in their way.
I stretch out my arms. I spin around. I dash up the red-lit staircase at the center of the square. I walk into photograph after photograph after photograph. I pose with tourists. I stand in the way of the camera. I’m blocking them, but I’m not. I’m in their way, but I’m not. I’m here, but I’m not.
* * *
My thoughts keep me up most of the night.
Did she really see me?
If she did, what did she see?
I must have been wearing clothes. I must have looked the right age. But still.
Was she seeing what she wanted to see?
Was she seeing what I’d want her to see?
Is she really the only one?
* * *
For days, I avoid her. I hear more furniture being moved into her apartment. I hear her and her brother in the hall. Her and her mother. I don’t dare go out there.
What if she sees me again?
What if she doesn’t?
All of my secrets start with the first one. All of my life is built around the secrets.
I am not ready to let that go. I am not ready to see what happens next. Because it’s possible that nothing will happen, and that might break me.
* * *
I remember the days after my mother died. How I had to hide from the world. How I fell so deeply into silence that I forgot the sound of my own voice, as well as the sound of hers. How there didn’t seem to be any point to one if I couldn’t have the other.
* * *
Eventually, I have to leave. I am starting to feel like I’m pacing my cage. I go to the park. I look for Ivan and Karen. I look for other regulars. But the day is hotter than usual, and everyone is in a rush.
I head back home. I check the mail when no one is looking. I throw it all away, so there’s nothing to carry.
I take the elevator back to my floor. When the doors open, she’s right there.
There’s no question: She sees me. The look on her face is half curiosity, half amusement.
“If it isn’t the Disappearing Boy,” she says. “I was starting to wonder if you really lived here.”
I stare into her eyes. I am searching for my reflection. I am trying to discover what I look like.
But all I see are her eyes. The light of the elevator. The back wall.
The doors start to close, and I haven’t left the elevator yet. She sticks her hand in their way to keep them open.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Out for a walk?” she asks.
“Yeah. It’s hot.”
“I heard.”
This is so awkward. There are a thousand things I could ask her, but not a single one of them would be normal.
I get out of the elevator, and she gets in.
“See ya,” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply.
The doors close.
She’s gone.
* * *
I don’t know if I can bear it. Everything was under control. Everything worked. And now this. I forget to eat. I can’t read without the sentences somehow pointing back at me. TV seems flat, unreal.
The key to living with a problem is not to think about it all the time.
I am now thinking about it all the time.
* * *
On the seventh day after she first saw me, I break a promise I made to myself.
I email my father.
There’s a girl in the building who can see me, I write. How is this possible?
That’s all I can say. I don’t want to know about his life. I don’t want him to know about my life.
I just want an answer.
* * *
Tell me about the curse, I would plead with my mother. It’s my life. I have a right to know.
I can’t tell you anything, she would say. If I told you, it would only be worse. It could get much, much worse.
What’s worse than this? I’d yell. Tell me, what’s worse than this?
She couldn’t hug me whenever she wanted to. She couldn’t kiss me whenever she wanted to. It is impossible to know what love is like when those things are taken away. She had to wear all her care in her voice, and all her devotion in the way she looked at me.
It can be much worse than this, she’d tell me. You have no idea. And for as long as I live, you’ll have no idea.
There was no sentence after this period. There was no story after this page. At least, not one that she would tell me.
* * *
On the eighth day, I order groceries online. It usually takes four or five hours for them to be delivered, but this time there’s a knock on my door after two. This is strange—I always give explicit instructions to leave all parcels outside my door without knocking.
“Just leave them!” I yell.
“Leave what?” a voice calls back.
Her voice.
I’m stuck. She knows I’m in here. I know she’s out there.
I look through the peephole and see she’s alone.
“I can hear you breathing on the other side of the door,” she says. “Can you open it? I don’t want to have to huff and puff. My huffing and puffing can be fierce.”
I make a decision: I am going to let her in. I am going to pretend that everything is ordinary. She is just dropping by. Of course she can see me. Everyone can see me. This is just a neighborly visit. I can be a friendly neighbor. Especially since I don’t have a choice.