I can’t tell if she’s looking at me. Well, okay, she’s definitely looking AT me, but does she see me the way I see her? I want to reach out and touch the swell of hair curved along her forehead, see if it folds or holds, but the motion would certainly give me away, if the illusion was even still holding.

It’s always a roll of the dice, going out in public beyond your usual (literal) haunt. It’s one thing to pace the terrace outside of the cafe where you used to sit and drink shitty coffee and work on short poems and terrible people-watching vignettes, or stare at your empty reflection on the pond where you almost drowned a few winters ago. But to be seen, after you’ve given up on ever again feeling the heat of another person’s gaze — that is something that you can only steel yourself for, and that preparation doesn’t go very far.

If I could sweat, I would be a waterfall. I’d only even gotten on the subway because I didn’t feel like floating to the other side of town (even ghosts get tired, but it feels less like body fatigue and more like a dull headache), but the gamble hadn’t paid off. She’s definitely looking at me. Oh god, she’s GLARING at me.

Look away. Look away! The words sound like sirens in my head, but I can’t tear myself away from her gaze. To be seen, to be SEEN, makes me almost feel alive again, and as much as I know I shouldn’t, I crave that feeling more than anything else. And so I fall into her eyes, Icarus hurtling toward twin suns. It’s too late, and as the car pulls into the next station, she slowly walks my way.

“ARCHIE!” she screams at me, her voice rising at the end of each syllable—"aaaAARRRRchhheeeEEEEE"—and ugh, why is she doing this to me today??? Literally all I want to do is go up to my room and text Brianna about Corine’s stupid joke today (“C'mon, aren’t you funny?” Choke on my funny fist, you numbskull) and maybe take a pill or two and do my homework so Mr. Flint doesn’t fail me for the semester, and ugh that just reminds me that I have to finish my group work for Shella’s class and UGH, just, UGH, why does everything have to be so difficult and oh my god is she blocking my way up the staircase?

“I have so much homework and you’re being a goddamn bitch!” is what I want to scream at her, but instead I bend down, take the gum out of my mouth, and stick it in her hair. She puts down the book (which I’ve read to her literally a million times already) and smashes her grubby hands into her hair, and into the gum. I know I should sign off with some sort of apologetic comment, or even a snarky jab, but instead I walk past her, reach into my bag, grab another piece of gum, and start working on a bubble as I make my way up the stairs.

“aaaaaaAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRCHEEEEEEE”

I slam and lock the door behind me.

It hits me in a rush, like bad coffee rushing through my bowels, and then ohhhh there it is, that singular chill snaking down my spin, raising goosebumps and bringing me to my knees and ahhhHHHHHH 

I’m clutching at the ground now, forced onto my side in a facsimile of the fetal position, except instead of comfort, all I feel is pain, pain relentless and of all kinds — dull jabs, needles of many different points and sharpness, fleeting but deliberate movements, cavorting around my insides as though a fête is being held right under my ribcage. The pain is excruciating; when people asked me what was the worst way to die, I always said being burned alive, but now I’d have to amend my answer. How could this — BE, how could this be. Perhaps I shouldn’t amend my answer at all; this is fire from inside, torching my liver and my intestines and the bottom shelf of my lungs. I inhale smoke, and thunder, and broken ash.

As suddenly as it began, it stops, and then the euphoria settles in uneasily like a spring snow. Oh… so this is the “why” of it… I feel the flame die down, and instead there’s a fuzziness around me. It clears; I see through the walls of her apartment, through the rat nests and roach colonies and thin ribbons of marching ants, into the unsteady seam of ragged concrete walls and the busted bedrock they rely on. Oh… 

She says something; I turn to look at her but despite the interest I know I have, my eyes must appear glassy, unfocused on her even as they continue their descent into the core of the earth. Blah blah blah, and then — the sharp sting of blood. Oh. I’m bleeding! Maybe I should lick it up, but, it’s probably better just to let it run.

She looks so peaceful, like a cute little angel that belongs on the top of a Christmas tree. I’m not a Christian, but God bless her and the tuft of hair that flutters in and out along with her breath. It’s almost enough to make me spare her, but alas, work is work, and well, if I didn’t do it, who would?

A quick swing of the scythe, and oh—my bag is almost full. For such a small girl, she has such a heavy soul; should’ve brought the reinforced sack. But it seemed an unnecessary precaution for the children’s ward. The last time I’d made a sweep through here, I’d been able to walk away twirling the day’s work around my finger, the bag sounding with a whoosh as it whistled by my ear.

But wait… I’m peering closer at my mark. This can’t be, and yet, it seems to be the case: the hair is still moving. She’s still breathing. But how… this shouldn’t be the case…

…but there’s something tugging in the bag. Perhaps I was wrong. Oh God, I was wrong.

Smoke drifts into my face. I pretend not to notice, but how can I not — a river of floating ash transcending the tacit boundary between us. It doesn’t seem fair, that I would have to beg him for help and suffer the presence of his physical, though I explicitly came here with one thought on my mind: Don’t let his flesh touch yours, don’t let the thought of his fingers brushing your knuckles dig its way into your head. Too late, too late; he’s seated across the table, and there might as well be an ocean between us, if it weren’t for the thin gray trail snaking across our demarcation line.

“So…” A quick puff, and then he turns toward me without meeting my eyes, “This seems like something pretty serious, huh.” I want to punch him, to fling his food offering into his face and smash the cigarette into his unsteady face. He knows why I’m here. He knows what it takes for me to face him again, after so many years. The last time I saw him, I was screaming at him through the glass door of his lover’s apartment; he’d emanated an indifference so strong that I couldn’t sleep for days, fearful of dissolving into the dark thoughts in my head. Why couldn’t I admit how much he’d hurt me? Why was he pretending he didn’t already know? 

I bit the side of my tongue between my molars, inhaled his ashes, and nodded once, sharply. He finally looked me square in the eyes, and then in a passionless voice, murmured, “You’re fucked.”

I keep checking my watch and wondering how it is that time crawls to a halt as soon as you begin to anticipate. The word is so clumsy, but the feeling is so intense, so agonizing, like being stabbed in the chest with a red hot butter blade — the cut is small, insignificant, and smooth, but oh boy, you’ll notice it, and it will hurt like a motherfucker.

That was also clumsy, but whatever, I was never good with words. Chances are, she’ll walk through the threshold, the bell will chime, she’ll scan the bar, and she won’t even see me. Maybe she will, and decide she doesn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, but I’d hoped-

Oh. 

I dream of drowning — water rushes into my throat and I scream out bubbles, trailing up toward the blue light filtering down into bottomless deep. My limbs are useless, pulling against invisible chains shackled to my weak wrists and ankles, and all this does is upend me, until my head is facing down toward the dark black bloom of the abyss. What do I think about, in the face of imminent death? The last tweet I’d sent out: PRAY 4 ME, praying hands emoji.

I’d have woken up from that shock alone, but the water certainly helped. Like the moment you’re walking alone in a residential area in the early morning and the sprinklers go on. I snorted and coughed, until I realized both where I was (facing the pouring sky) and that I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there. My back ached, tiles digging into my shoulder blades. Where the hell was I that it’d have a tiled roof? I thought about getting up to find out, but then my phone started ringing. I didn’t want to answer it; I had, after all, just escaped death, and needed some time to myself before rejoining the living world.

The rustling of the leaves reminded me of our nights spent tugging sheets — hands and elbows jostling for coverage against the heavy cold. Those winter nights were the only times we slept with our arms wrapped around each other, faces buried in the nooks and crannies of unspooled limbs. I’d wake up with your face mashed into my chest, your hair draped over and around my belly. We’d had a few long, lean months, but no matter where we’d go during the lifeless days, we’d collapse into and tug at each other every night frost clouded our windows and crept in through the cracks of our home.

The first shoots had peeked through the soil when I got the call; I’d been so embarrassed, excusing myself from the room as their eyes trailed my exiting form and registered the way I hesitated with my hand on the door. I wish I remembered what I’d said, or even just what I’d wanted to say — it didn’t matter at the time, but looking back, I should’ve recorded your voice and the warning you gave. Now, I can only hear you through the sound of leaves, your memory frozen in muted sleep.

“YOU FUCKERS!” she bellows, and she swings her fists wildly into the air even as the pressure tightens around her waist. “THIS ISN’T WHAT WE AGREED TO! THIS ISN’T EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT WE AGREED TO!”

Her immediate tormenter only chuckles, and another (god damn them, god damn them all) pins her arms in front of her as the pressure gives way to a pained strain and the blood rushes back toward her abdomen. The hurt is unbelievable, except it is nothing compared to the pain in her feet – the vice around her toes makes her giddy when she tries to even feign striding. Her breaths are coming in short, each intake sending a shooting pain right into the hanging curve of her ribs.

“Hold still,” one of the voices chides, “You’re only making this more difficult for yourself, fidgeting around like this.” And then someone lifts the blindfold from her eyes and – she has to hold back a gasp, not the least because that’s the only form of breathing she can manage but because damn, within the tilt and shine of the mirror, she looks like the spitting image of a queen-to-be.

Which, as it turns out, she is.