She was back. It had been years, but Ian knew even before he saw her, knew without a doubt: she was back in town. Her presence hung over the city like a cloud of perfume, daring him not to notice her.
He took to hurrying everywhere, eyes fixed on the pavement so that he could walk by her and never notice. It was just staving off the inevitable, he knew, but at least it was something.
Oddly enough, then, the first time he saw her she didn’t even notice him. Asleep in his parked car outside his apartment, he dreamed of her voice and then woke to find her there. Through the windshield, he could see her hanging on the arm of some goon, hair cascading down her back. She was thinner than he remembered, but her laugh was still the same.
Ian stopped going anywhere but to work and back, holding his breath on the subway in between. If he didn’t make an impression on the outside world, there was no way she could find him, he promised himself. But of course she did.