“Or John?” he offers. “Luke?”
“Are you just naming guys from the Bible now?”
He laughs, sounding more normal than he did a few minutes ago, less sad. “Thatguy looks like a John, though. The one running with his dog.”
I find said man: mid-thirties, winter vest and gray tracksuit, running with the leash of a jittery Jack Russell. “Maybe,” I say.
“And his dog’s name could be Apollo.”
“What’s that lady’s name?” I ask, nodding in the direction of a blond woman walking with a middle-school-age boy.
“Suzanne. Maybe Lorelei.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “If this is so easy for you, you really should be able to figure out your own name.”
Just try,I want to beg him.Please just try.
He shrugs, but there’s that layer of sadness again. I shift to get more comfortable on the bench, and he glances up, like he thinks I’m about to leave and he’ll disappear again. The tension in his body decreases when he sees that I’m not going yet.
My fingers tingle from the sharp drop in temperature the last couple of minutes, and I rub them together to warm them. It’s the kind of chilly that targets the ends of things: the tips of fingers and noses, ears and knees and toes.
“Cold?” he asks.
“No, I’m—”
But he’s already leaning toward me, tugging down my hat so it covers better. His fingers brush the tips of my ears, making them warmer than they already are. He doesn’t take his hands back immediately, and it’s only when I lean away from him, my heart ticktocking in my chest, that he leans back, too.
“Um, thanks,” I say, embarrassed. How is any of what I see or feel real if this—this hearing him breathe out loud, this feeling his fingers on my skin—is not?
“No problem.”
I feel so frustrated I could cry. I am sitting with the very person, the veryapparition,that has tormented me the past few days, and I still don’t know a thing about him, about how he got here, why he’s here, and whatI’msupposed to do about it all.
But the other side of it—the unexpected side—is that I feel bad forhim.He reminds me, weirdly, of myself when I’m with Katy’s friends or people at school, of having a family where no one really looks at each other. It’s not the same as being an invisible person. But I thinklonelyfeels a lot like not remembering your own name.
So I stay with him for another few minutes, naming more strangers we don’t know, until it starts to get a little too cold to be outside and the sun starts to sink in the sky.
He doesn’t feel all that much like a stranger. It feels comfortable—normal, even—sitting here with him. Still, I notice all the passersby giving me wary looks as they walk, trying to figure out who I’m talking to. And when I finally stand and say an awkward goodbye to him, I know that this afternoon—the strange comfort and understanding between us—doesn’t change anything.
I still have to get help.
I still, in all probability, am bat-shit crazy.
BEFORE
Mid-July
“You didn’t say she wasthistall.”
It is Saturday morning, two days after our day of mundane things, and Zach’s best friend, Raj, frowns at me like what he means is,You forgot to mention she was a troll.
“Addie’s not that tall,” Zach says, shooting me an apologetic look, then frowning in Raj’s direction.
“She’s taller than me!” Raj protests, ignoring the message in Zach’s eyes.
“So?” Zach asks, exasperated.
Raj sighs, flopping onto the couch in Zach’s (mercifully) air-conditioned basement. Raj has a round face, brown skin, and straight black hair down to his ears. He’s dressed almost exactly like Zach.
