I'm Here

The gentle sway of the train car almost puts me to sleep. The setting sun, despite being weak, manages to keep me awake. Leaning against the door, I adjust my shoulder so it doesn't bother me anymore. I look around, noticing that the number of passengers in this car has decreased substantially. I glance at the panel above me. I'm six stations away from my final destination. I wonder if anyone will get off at the next station, and I hope no one will use the door I'm leaning against. I extend my wrist, checking the time on my watch. Four forty-seven in the afternoon. I should get off at the next station and take the train back. My parents might get worried. I rest my head against the glass of the door, and see the plastic seats, almost all empty now. At the far end is August, a sociology professor. With the day's newspaper in hand, he diligently works on the crossword puzzle. This habit of August has been there since the first time I noticed him when I started traveling on line eleven. The previous line was three. After two years of traveling on that line, I got tired of seeing the same faces every day. So, here we are on line eleven. I turn and lean my back against the door. I let out a loud sigh, but no one seems to care. They never care. I lift my eyes and get a scare. A girl is looking directly at me. I wonder if the girl is gazing at the concrete landscape stretching out in the glass behind me. But no. I realize she is not just acknowledging my presence. She sees me. When we are traveling on public transport, you don't really see people. In the train, when we enter the car, we are aware of the other people around us. Sometimes we notice the presence of passengers who catch our attention. But we rarely see those people. If your attention is fully on one person, you see the person. And in that moment inside the car where you are, there is only the person and the one who sees the person. And this girl is doing that. She sees me, she perceives me. I see her. At that very moment when we establish a connection, where our gazes form a bridge, she looks away and I do the same. The bridge collapses. I notice that I’m holding my breath, as if that would preserve the moment we had shared. I feel euphoric and scared at the same time. No one had noticed me before. No one had seen me before. I have searched for signs of my presence in the gazes of other people before, and never found traces that anyone had seen me. I am invisible in this car, on this train. I am invisible anywhere. It has always been like this since I was seven. People do not see me. At home, not even my parents see me; I have to make noise for them to know I’m home. They are like blind people, needing stimuli to know where I am. It’s not a metaphor. It’s not something that’s just in my head. This is a fact. I am invisible. I decide to risk another look at the girl. I lift my eyes. That’s not enough for me. I want to approach her. I don’t want to say anything to her, I just want to know what she’s like. The girl hides her short blonde hair under a beanie. I skip the eye area; I don’t want to risk another exchange of glances. Her lips seem a bit chapped, thanks to today’s sun. Her skin is light, but I notice it’s a little dirty. I see that she carries a skateboard next to her body. She must have gone to the skatepark that exists two train stations back. She wears a well-worn gray hoodie, and her black pants are as ragged as her sneakers. Most of the passengers in this car are college students. They are all well-dressed; I don’t need to see them to know that. Then there’s this girl. So out of place, but at the same time, so part of the environment as a whole. My eyes start to travel up her face, going to her eyes. It’s as if she’s a magnet. I blink a few times, trying to divert my gaze. But I can’t. I have to see. I give a slight push with my elbows and cross the car, holding onto the bars. The girl is also leaning against the automatic door. The distance from one door to the other is short. As I walk, I only look at the rubberized floor. Her feet come into my view, and I see they’re restless, switching positions nonstop. It’s a short walk, barely two and a half meters. I stop at a vertical steel bar, fifty centimeters from the girl. I take a deep breath and begin to lift my face. Why is it so hard to look someone in the eyes? It’s not a crime. But it feels like such an intense, intimate act that it seems wrong to do it casually. My eyes start to see the outlines of her eyes. Small freckles. The eyelids. It feels like my vision has traveled miles to reach that point. The colors arrive at me, and I hold my breath again. Chilling blue eyes stare into my gray ones. The bridge forms again, as solid as before. Now my eyes scan hers, and hers scan mine. I convince myself that she can really see me. I notice her hands tightening around the skateboard's axle. I feel my back curve a little; I am leaning toward the girl. In a leap, I sit up straight and try not to break that bridge again. I start breathing again; I haven't lost the connection between us. I realize she is nervous, shy. I am nervous. I've never been in this situation. Something seems to leap in my chest. I notice I am smiling. Not a flamboyant smile, but a simple, sincere smile. Her eyes quickly glance away but return to look at me again. The girl’s face begins to blush. We are in a moment where there is only the two of us, the girl and I. The sound of the train's brakes brings us back to reality. We are stopping at the station. The bridge disappears again. I don’t want her to go away. The girl looks behind her through the glass. She realizes she has arrived at the station she wanted. Before the automatic doors open, she turns to me again. Her gaze is a goodbye. I feel like I don’t want that. I could get off right here, go after her. The doors open, and she exits without saying anything. Should I get off and follow her? Before I can decide, the doors close. I am oblivious to the world again, with nothing connecting me to it. The passengers do not notice my presence. They do not know I am here. I walk to the other end of the car, where it is partially empty. I sit in a seat, resting my head against the glass behind me. I look again at the watch on my wrist. Four fifty-five in the afternoon. It seems like a small eternity has passed, and I didn’t even notice. (...) I get off at the next station and take the train back home. The return trip happens as it always does. I get on the train, but I’m not really there. My body and mind are in that car with the other passengers, but no one notices them. I am just a presence, just like all the other passengers in that car. At that moment, I feel like I am part of the collective, even though I am not. I get off at my destination station and leave the station, crossing the gas station on the other side of the street calmly. The sun hides behind the landscape, starting the day for other people. I look up at the sky, which is at the point where it is neither day nor night. I wonder how many people are seeing the sky as I am, and I notice that I am trying to join the collective again. I continue walking quietly, thinking about what I would do when I got home. It takes five minutes to get from home to the train station, but I make it a point to take as long as possible. I pull out my phone and headphones. In my music selection, I calmly scroll to the letter C and choose a song by the band "Cigarettes After Sex." I learned to like this band quickly, to connect with them quickly, even though I have never experienced the emotions they sing about in their lyrics. When I discovered them, I felt a bit envious of the characters in their songs. Even with tumultuous, or undoubtedly clichéd relationships, they had something to connect with. Before entering the house, I notice that the car is in the garage, and the lights inside the house are on. I pass through the door, grab my dad's baseball bat, and hit the aluminum bar they installed for me with moderate force. — Dante? Is that you? — I hear my mom call out. She must be in the kitchen. There’s no point in yelling or shouting. I tried all that when I was seven, but no one heard me. No matter how close they were to me. But I still had influence over the things around me. The most effective method we found was to make noise. Our communication system has become more sophisticated over time. Today, to say things to each other, we write in a notebook. I’m not in the mood to chat with my parents tonight. Without making noise, I go to the kitchen and leave a note saying that I went to bed early. That’s what I plan to do. I go upstairs and lock myself in my room. I don’t have the patience to even check my emails. I have online classes, but I simply can’t pay as much attention as when I’m in a classroom. My head is full today. I practically spent the day traveling by train, going from one end of the state to the other. When you are invisible, you don’t have to worry much about tickets. You just have to jump the turnstile. I throw myself on the bed, burying my face in the pillow. I let out a muffled shout, not out of frustration, just because I can and because I feel like it. I turn my face and look at the bedside table. Photos from when I was younger cover the surface. I was such a happy child, always smiling. I wonder if I ever thought in that little immature head of mine back then, that things would turn out the way they are today. When we are children, there are always moments when we wish to be invisible. We even dream of it. I have dreamed of it. But I never really imagined that I would become truly invisible. At seven, there were times when I would "blink," disappearing and reappearing from everyone's sight. I didn't know how I did it, but I did. But one moment, I disappeared and couldn't become visible again, yet I could still see myself. My parents lost it. It's a parent's job to lose it when something bad happens to their child. My mother cried every day, and my father tried to hold it together. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I was living out every kid's dream. The first six weeks were fun. But then the reality hit. I couldn't talk to anyone, no one could hear or see me. People I called friends began to drift away, and I started to cease to exist in their lives. So I isolated myself. There was no reason to go out into the world, to let them know of my existence. It wouldn’t do any good. At thirteen, I started traveling alone by train. By then, my mother had learned to live with the fact that she had a son she couldn't see, and my father did the best he could. I thank the universe for them. I turn once more, lying on my back. On the ceiling, an old blue sticker was stuck. That blue reminds me of the girl on the train, of her gaze. The nervousness we felt. The bridge we built. I catch myself longing to have that moment again. I shake my head, dispelling the thought. It's very unlikely that I will find her again. The moment sleep begins to envelop me, I think of her. I realize I want to know the girl's name. In all these years, she was the only one who could see me. I want to see her again, and I don't want her just to notice me. I want her to see me.