Invisible
She lay on
the steps, not because she couldn't get up, but because she was curious if
anyone would stop to help her. No one did. No one asked. She rubbed at her
twisted ankle, tested her weight, then stood. The students flowed around her, a
steady ocean of both order and chaos, while she stood still, a wind-up toy
stuttering to a stop.
Yesterday
was no different. When she tripped over her own two clumsy feet and her
notebooks went flying, nobody stopped. Nobody picked them up. They stepped
around her as if she didn't exist.
Today the
stairs were slippery from wet feet squeaking along them, creating puddles like
the one she had been unfortunate enough to come across. She went tumbling down
six steps. She counted. And no one stopped.
Were they
too absorbed in their own thoughts and worries to see what had happened? Or did
they just not care?
She thought
she'd seen him glance her way, the one with the storm cloud eyes, long nose,
perpetual bed head, and crooked smile. But when she smiled back, wiping her
tears on the back of her muddy sleeve, he lifted his hand in greeting to
someone behind her. His friend slammed his shoulder into hers, knocking her
into a wall that greeted her with open arms. The friend kept walking. Like he'd
gone right through her.
The day
after, something changed. She could feel it as soon as she stepped through the
doors, the ones the other students had let close right in her face despite the
fact she was only a few steps behind them. She limped slightly on the way to
class, the tingling in her foot similar to the tingling in her stomach when she
felt the shift. Something was different. She didn't know how or why, but it
was. In her excitement she couldn't even remember why her foot was hurting in
the first place, like how every day she couldn't quite remember how she'd
gotten to school.
The
difference was the boy who'd almost looked at her the day before--the one with
the storm cloud eyes, long nose, perpetual bed head, crooked smile--sat behind
her in class. She didn't know it until he'd tapped her on the shoulder with his
pencil, tapping her with the eraser, tapping, tapping, tapping. A jolt of
energy went through her arm, radiating out from the spot where he'd touched
her. Contact. When was the last time she'd had contact?
"Hey,"
he said, and the rasp of his voice, undeniably directed at her, was thrilling
enough to make her insides explode, like the contents of a shaken soda. "I
don't think I've seen you here before."
What she
wanted to say, "You can see me?" But what came out instead was,
"I don't think you have, either."
He smiled
again, that crooked smile an offbeat Indie song. "Are you new?"
"No,
I've been coming here for--" She trailed off, unable to recall.
He didn't
seem to notice, instead pointed with his pencil at the doodles on her arm, a
quote surrounded by stars. Of course it's happening inside your head, Harry.
But why on earth should that mean that it is not real? "Harry Potter
fan?"
"I
just like the quote. It makes me feel less crazy."
"Why
do you say that?"
She
shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder if anyone can see me at all."
"What
do you mean?"
She
snorted. "Really? You haven't seen me all this time."
Something
about her sarcasm caused his eyebrows to pull together, form a different kind
of crooked line. "I don't know why. I feel like I would've noticed you
before."
She ignored
his feeble excuse. "Who are you?"
He opened
his mouth, but no words left. He opened his mouth with the intention of a
response, that much she could tell, but why he couldn't answer, she didn't
know.
"I
don't know," he echoed her confusion. "I--I don't remember anything
before coming to school."
"Neither do I," she
admitted. "Hence part of the crazy."
"It's
like we're ghosts," he said, almost like he was talking to himself rather
than her.
Ghosts.
Ghosts.
Tires
screeched in the distance, memories barreling into her, and then she remembered
the pain. Before she could convince herself this heart-pounding panic was a
dream, she gripped his hand and dragged him outside, past students and teachers
who paid them no mind. He didn't question her, not even when they stumbled into
the snowy streets. She jerked to the sidewalk, him stopping with her, and she
watched as a car that rippled at the edges skidded on the wet pavement, losing
all control, and slammed into another version of her. A younger version. She
watched as her other self arced through the air and cracked her head on the
street, crumpling in a heap that no one but the driver saw.
The car
sped away. It and her broken body vanished.
"Was
that--" He started.
"I
remember," she whispered.
She turned
to him, the words lodging in her throat, spilling out her eyes. Suddenly her
foot didn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurt. Because there was nothing. She was
nothing. Before she faded into the air, she hoped he understood through the ink
bleeding down her face. Lights flashed in front of her eyes. And she rested.
