The Intrusion

Three

[Jordan]

It's around 9:30pm when Mel and I return from dinner. We reach the door to our apartment, still giggling about the couple who were fighting over putting ketchup on eggs during the elevator ride up.

I lean back against the wall as Mel rummages through her purse for the key. She finally pulls it out, but as she reaches towards the lock, her hand slips. She misses the slot and the key drops to the floor with a clank.

"Butterfingers," I chuckle under my breath.

"I only had two beers." She laughs more to herself than me, picking up the key and giving the lock a second attempt.

"Learn to hold your liquor," I joke.

She mutters something that sounds like the classic "you learn to hold your liquor" comeback, and then she finally gets the door open.

I follow her inside and plop my purse down on the circular glass dining table situated obnoxiously close to the entrance. Mel heads into the living room and takes a seat on the couch. She reaches for her book, opening it to the marked page so she can pretend to read it some more.

I shrug out of my jacket, lay it over the back of the dinning chair and make my way into the living room. The sparkling city lights pull me towards the window, daring me to gaze out into the world.

I look over at Jack's apartment. It's empty right now. I don't even see Spot.

I guess Rebecca has already put Chad to bed.

Clair has a man—he looks like he can't be older than me—over. I haven't seen him before. He isn't deserving of a name yet. Clair, the cougar herself, goes through them so quickly, I'd be naming them like hurricanes if I tried to give all of them a name. If I see him more than twice, I'll think about it. Maybe Bob. Or perhaps Clifford.

"Clair's caught another one," I say to Mel, not even bothering to turn to look at her.

"Yeah?" she asks. "I believe that."

My gaze turns to another apartment where a man is standing in front of the window. I don't think I've seen anyone in this apartment before—or at least not anyone doing anything interesting enough to watch or remember. I wonder who this guy is. He's too far away for me to tell what his face looks like or his expression.

Suddenly, his head turns, and he looks directly at me. My breath catches in my throat, and my heart gives a single thunderous pound against my chest. I know he is looking at me. I don't know how I know, but I know.

He sees me watching him.

I suck in a short breath and stumble back from the window, slamming my heel against the side of the couch with a dull thud.

"Shit!" I cry out, reaching towards my foot and hopping up and down a couple of times.

"All right?" Mel asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I rub my hand against the back of my heel. "Just banged my foot." I limp back up to the window. "There's this guy in the apartment across the street."

"Yeah?"

"I think he saw me."

"What do you mean?" Mel asks. "Saw you?"

"He looked at me. We made eye contact."

Mel gets up from the couch and stands next to me, peering out the window. "Was he cute?" she teases.

"I couldn't tell, Mel. I couldn't see his face that well."

"Then how do you know he was looking at you?"

"I don't know," I sigh. "I guess I could just tell."

She shrugs. "Which apartment was he in?"

"That one right below the dark window on the left." I point to where I saw the man looking at me, but he's gone now. Disappeared.

Mel takes a few steps closer and squints out the window, bringing her hand up to the side of her face as she does to emphasize how hard she is trying to see. "I don't see anyone in there, Jordan." She lets her hand fall back down to her side with a sigh.

"Yeah, he must have gone into another room or something, but I swear, he was looking at me."

Mel laughs. "Guess we'll have to add him to our list. You wanna give him a name?"

"I don't know. I'll have to think about it."

Mel snickers. "Well, let me know if you think of one." She turns and heads off towards her bedroom. "Think I'm going to head to bed. Goodnight, Jordan."

"Goodnight," I say, but I don't take my gaze away from the window.

Where did he go?

I try to remember what he looked like, but the more I think about it, the harder it becomes to remember, and the image of the man in the apartment across the street transforms into nothing but a shadow.

A shadow without a face.