Disaster Waiting to Happen

Chapter Two

A year passed, seasons changed, and the city stayed busy, bumbling with activity as all the living continued their lives despite the loss of hers.

Holland wandered from street to street, watching the world persevere. She became quite the snoop, listening in on conversations, sometimes following people home, drifting through their halls, watching their children sleep, and shaking her head sadly over all their mistakes. No one ever sensed her near, so she eventually moved on, growing lonelier and more bored with each passing home.

She couldn't eat, couldn't drink, didn't have to sleep, though sometimes she did, just to help pass the time. The only thing she could do was observe. But watching others make such horrible decisions over and over again, hurt their most cherished loved ones, and abuse their gift of life depressed her. She wished for more.

What she craved most was a companion, just anyone who could react to her. Once, she thought a seeing-eye dog has spotted her, but that ended up just being a mouse who'd run through her feet.

And so her misery grew.

One evening after a drenching rain that left the city smelling of damp musk, Holland sat on the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge, swinging her dangling legs over the water as she watched the sun set in the horizon.

The sky looked very purple and yellow tonight. She liked the purple and yellow nights best. They reminded her of the flowers Jared Mackenzie had brought her on the night of her first date when she'd been sixteen. Purple and yellow irises plucked straight from his mother's flowerbed.

He and Holland had only lasted a few months, until he'd decided he had a better chance of scoring with Miranda Boon. But Holland no longer held that against him. Instead, she wondered how he was, where he might be living, if he was married with children. He was probably content with his life in the suburbs, inside a middle class home, working an average forty-hour-a-week job with the weekends off. She envied him that.

She'd just decided she should look Jared up and check in on him, see how he'd turned out, when a voice spoke from her right.

"At least it's a beautiful view to jump to."

Holland whirled around, surprised she wasn't alone. She hadn't heard the man's approach. But there he stood, barely ten feet away, hands jammed into the front pockets of his dark hoodie as he watched the sunset with her.

She glanced around them, wondering who he was talking to. But strangely, no one else was nearby.

"Though I'd probably want to stick around another day," he added conversationally, "see if tomorrow's sunset looked even better."

Seriously, who did he think he was talking to?

When he tore his attention from the horizon and looked directly at her, she sucked in a breath. Their gazes clashed, eye to eye, and her heart jumped in surprise while all her limbs buzzed with awareness.

"Can you see me?" she blurted.

Strong, firm lips curved up at the corners. "What? Can't you remember if you put on your invisibility cape before you left home this evening?"

Her lips parted. He could see her. And hear her too.

Incredible.

But quickly followed by the bubbling joy, a sudden burst of fear rose in her throat. She wasn't sure what this meant. She knew she shouldn't care, she should just be grateful someone could finally see her, but she was too afraid it wouldn't last, terrified that doing or saying the wrong thing might scare him off.