11: saw what

I went to the bus stop.

I've been going to the bus stop, I take the 14 home, that's not a decision. But tonight I went early. Left at 4:50, stood at the curb at 5:02, and waited, and I'm writing that down because I want it clear that I went looking. That's new.

He was there.

Same coat, too heavy, it's April. Sitting on the bench this time, the one in the shelter, the one I still won't sit on. No pharmacy bag. I saw him from half a block and my chest did the thing, the kid-in-the-room thing, and I walked up and I stood in front of the bench and I said "hey."

He looked up. Polite. Nothing.

I said, "the signal." I pointed at the crosswalk. I said "last week, the countdown, you said you saw it."

He looked at the signal, then he looked at me. I watched his eyes go to the signal and come back to me, and it wasn't the ping pong. There was no question in it. It went out and came back with nothing on it, the way your eyes go to a clock and come back and you don't remember what time it said. And he said:

"Saw what?"

Not defensive. Not lying, I'm bad at faces but I know lying, retail teaches you lying. It was a person who was meeting me for the first time and being nice about it. They said "sorry, do I know you?" and I said no, I guess not, and he said "okay," in the exact voice Marisol used about the logo. Okay. The dream voice.

I sat down. On the bench. I don't know why, I think my legs just did it, and it was fine, it was a bench, and we sat there for eleven minutes until the 14 came, and they didn't look at the signal once. It counted down twice. In order. I watched it. He just looked at his phone, as one does to kill the time. This is the part that has been walking around my head, pacing like a concerned parent all night.

I watched their eyes do the slide.

I'd been thinking about the sliding as a thing other people do, a thing that happens to the ones who never looked in the first place. But this person looked. A week ago this person looked at a bench and a signal and a sign on a bank and said you saw it too, like he'd been carrying it for years. And tonight their eyes went to the signal and slid right off, and I saw it happen, I saw the exact moment where the looking would've been, and there was just, nothing there. A smooth place.

It can be taken. That's what I learned at the bus stop. Whatever I've got, the sticky eyes, the not-sliding, it's not a thing you are. It's a thing you have. And somebody had it, and now they don't, and they don't know they don't, and they're fine. They're absolutely fine. He looked at his phone.

I got on the bus. They stayed on the bench, and I looked out the back window like last time and he didn't even look up.

I walked home the long way from my stop. I don't know why. I think I wanted to be outside a little longer with it still in my head before I went in.

Kate had left before I got in, some work thing, a note on the counter. Under the note was a new sticky note on the coffee maker. Her handwriting, neat, the little loop she does on the 6.

6:50. Hi-liter yellow post it.

That's all it says. I didn't ask her to. My pills aren't due for a refill for two weeks. There is no reason for that note to exist except that somebody wanted me to see the number when I woke up.

I put it back exactly where it was. I'm writing this from bed with the door shut, which I don't usually do, and I have ten pills left, and I've been sitting here doing the math on ten pills the way you'd do the math on ten dollars.