Her voice wobbles when she speaks next. “There’s no guy with red hair here, Addie. He’s not here.”
When I look at her, she is trembling and her eyes are starting to cloud. Is she joking? Practicing some bizarre new drama technique on me? I shift my eyes from her to him to her to the boy with the red hair—who I’ve talked to several times now, who makes my stomach flip, who I can see so clearly fiddling with something behind the counter—and I don’t know why she’s doing this. I don’t know how she can say that when he’s right there.
“Katy, he’s rightthere,” I say, grabbing her wrist. “Come on, we’ll go talk to him.”
But with a kind of bull-like strength not befitting someone of her stature, Katy digs her heels into the floor and refuses to move.
I leave her there and walk to the counter where he is.
“Hi!” I say too enthusiastically. My heart is pounding and it’s not because of a crush. He turns—Bus Boy, all six feet of him—and grins at me. “My friend wants to meet you. Will you come and say hi?”
“Hey,” he says, his face lighting up. “You’re back.”
I nod. “Can you come and talk to my friend for a second?” I point out Katy, whose eyes are bugging out of her head, staring at us. At me? “I want to introduce you.”
There’s a pause before Bus Boy speaks, a trace of something I can’t define in his voice. Apology? Sadness? “I can’t.” Then he turns from me, moves away from the counter, and goes back to sorting through a pile of papers.
When I head back to Katy, I feel dizzy.
“He can’t come because he’s working,” I say. Lie? I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Addie.” Katy swipes at a tear on her cheek. “You have to let me call my mom.” She’s looking at me with a desperation I can’t remember ever seeing in her eyes. “Please. She’ll know what to do.”
I shake my head, and then a burst of laughter that is as short as it is fake escapes me. “Why do you thinkI’mthe crazy one? You’re the one who can’t see him.”
“It’s not just me!” Katy is saying now. “You said the nurse didn’t find him after the accident.”
“Because he left! He didn’t need to be admitted.”
“You’ve been acting like the walking dead. Not sleeping. Not being able to concentrate. Forgetting stuff.”
I look at her, incredulous. “Hello? I hit my head in a bus crash.”
“Exactly!” Katy says.
“You think I’m making him up?” I shake my head again and blink a dozen times. He’s still there. Still leaning over a pile of papers behind the counter. Still wearing the blackCINEXPERIENCEshirt. Still existing. “Katy, this is insane.”
I can’t,he said when I asked him to come with me.
“I know. I know,” she says, pushing her bangs out of her face. She looks more panicked every time I look at her. “Okay, look, come here.”
She takes my hand and leads me to the concession counter on the far side of the lobby from where Bus Boy is. There’s no one in line, so a woman with light brown hair and glasses—the same one who caught me talking with Bus Boy on Monday—says she’ll be with us in a second. I remember now the odd look that she gave me. I thought it was for chatting up one of the other workers.
I wassureit was for chatting up one of the other workers.
“See her badge?” Katy whispers to me, and I nod. It saysKARI TOEWS, ASSISTANT MANAGER.
“Hi,” Katy says when Kari Toews is standing in front of us. “Is there a guy who works here that’s about our-age-ish?”
The woman, Kari, narrows her eyes at us, like we want her help to boyfriend-hunt while she’s working. I can’t tell if she recognizes me. “Yes. There are severalguyswho fit that description.”
“Right,” Katy says, turning to me. “So describe him. He’s…”
“Tall,” I say, and it is the oddest thing, standing across the room from him and describing him. “Red hair that’s kind of messy-looking.”
“Smile bright enough to power a city,” Katy fills in, looking down at the counter. I shoot her a surprised look. Is she being sarcastic? Did I go on about his smile that much the last couple of days?
“Um, yeah,” I say, looking back over at Bus Boy, who still has his back to me. “Skinny.”
