Being Invisible (13 page)

"Shit. Damn it. This is bad.
This is so freaking bad."

As soon as we put two and two
together, we paid the bill and headed straight to Liz's car to regroup. And by
regroup I mean freak the hell out. And by that, I mean I’m freaking out while
Liz listens to me rant.

"What the hell do I do?"
I turn to Liz who looks hopeless.

"I have no idea."

"If he can kill flowers by
just being near them, what's he going to do to Colin? Colin can’t get sick. It
screws with his invisibility."

"Should I call Drew?"
Liz holds up her phone, ready to call.

"I think...." I pause,
because honestly I'm just as curious to hear what I’m going to say as Liz is.
"I think you should call Drew..." She starts to dial his number, but
I stop her.

"…On your way back to the
cabin. Call Rob first. Tell him to come right away. Then stay in the cabin
until Drew gets there."

"What is all this 'on your
way back to the cabin' shit? Where are you in this scenario? What did I tell
you about the buddy system?"

"I have to find him, Liz. I
need to warn him."

"The hell you do. Do you
want
to die tonight? In the off chance
that you don't get killed by The Exterminator, Colin will surely take care of
it when he finds out you showed up." Liz is full on yelling at this point,
and I am a little afraid she might be ready to kill me herself.

"What the hell do you want me
to do? He could die. If I can stop that from happening, I have to try."

"How are you going to find
him? He's invisible."

"As soon as he sees me, he
will be in front of me faster than you can say 'The Vapor's soon to be
ex-girlfriend.'"

"So you realize he's going to
flip out and dump you?"

I take deep breath and let it out,
trying to calm my nerves. "Probably. But he's willing to lay his life on
the line for strangers, why can't I do it for him?"

Liz sits in the driver's seat,
clearly at war with herself over what to do. "Damn it, Lucy. If you die
tonight I am going to be so pissed at you."

“I know you are. But I am just
going to go in, get Colin, and leave. No heroics. As little stupidity as
possible. Zero crime drama."

"Fine. Go get this
ridiculousness over with. I'll call Rob, and scream at him until he comes here
and gets you guys out."

I nod my head and leave before I
have a chance to think about what I am doing.

After Liz drives away, I walk to
the front of the pub..

It's getting dark outside, so its
less likely I will be seen, but it's also making it difficult to keep my eye
out for what lies ahead of me.

I don't want anyone from the diner
to see me, so instead of crossing the street in front of the diner, I stay on
the same side of the street and walk in the opposite direction.

Once I feel like I am far enough
away, I cross the street but pass the sidewalk that will take me to the front
of the diner. Instead I continue to the alley that runs behind it.

As I get closer to the back door,
my nerves kick in full throttle. I don't know what worries me more, walking
right into the middle of a sting, or seeing Colin. Liz is right. He's not gonna
be happy.

I wait behind the dumpster,
relieved that at least no one's waiting for me there. As soon as I see a
waitress bringing trash out, I swiftly move around to the front of the dumpster
and sneak through the door she propped open with the trashcan.

Once inside, I take in my
surroundings. I am in a hallway with a couple doors on the right and one on the
left. When I hear the voices of a couple people coming from the kitchen, I pick
a door and head into the room.

It looks like I am standing in a
supply closet. I wait until the voices fade, then sneak back out. I want to be
out in the open enough for Colin to see me, but near enough to a place to hide
just in case someone comes back here.

I can hear people in the kitchen
calling out orders, and a couple of the waitresses talking about child support.
Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Luckily, there's no sign of the guys we saw
walk in earlier.

Just as I'm about to relax a
little, I hear two male voices coming from what appears to be the Men’s
bathroom.

"If you think for one second
I won't kill you, then you don't know me as well as I thought. I will do
whatever it takes to get this deal done. Do you understand me?" The voice,
which is eerily calm one second, turns to rage at his last sentence.

Although the shouting seems to go
unnoticed by the kitchen staff, I have to cover my mouth to avoid making a
sound.

I can’t freak out this time. I have to stay on my toes.

Just as I am talking myself into
staying calm, I feel a hand cover my mouth, and I am pulled into the supply
closet.

Before I can react, Colin appears in
front of me.

“What the hell are you doing here,
Lucy? Are you insane?” Even though Colin is speaking in hushed tones, his voice
is laced with outrage. He’s even angrier than I expected.

“Colin, I know you are pissed,
but…”

“Pissed? I’m furious. One thing I
ask you to do. One. Never be near me when I am invisible. Are you trying to
punish me for leaving you tonight?”

“No! I came here because I saw
that guy you told me about. The Exterminator. He’s here in the diner, and he
has a superpower. He just touched a guy, and the guy fell to the ground,
doubled over in pain.”

“Carl Nagy is here?”

“If that’s The Exterminator then
yes.”

“And he made a guy collapse in
pain?”

“Yes.”

“Shit. This could be bad.” Colin
turns away from me for a moment, deep in thought.

“Colin, when he touched the guy,
the flowers behind him died. You have to get out of here.”

“Damn it, Lucy. I can handle
myself. It’s you I have to worry about. I don’t know what kind of stupid stunt
you’re pulling…”

“I just needed to warn you, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it. I am
getting you out of here now. This is the last thing I need.”

“Screw you Colin. I got myself in.
I can get myself out. You can go finish getting yourself killed without me.”

Colin doesn’t say anything. He
just opens the door a crack, checks to see if anyone’s coming, then grabs me
and throws me over his shoulder. I want to yell at him and tell him to put me
down, but of course we have to go unnoticed. I am silently furious.

He swiftly carries me through the
hall to the back of the diner. At the back door he puts me down, and checks to
see if anyone is outside. Once he sees that no one is there, he picks me up off
of my feet, and drops me outside. I turn to say something to him, but he has
become invisible.

I feel Colin near my cheek before
I hear his voice, whispering in my ear. “We can’t walk to my car, because it’s
too far away, but we need to get away from this place. As soon as we are far
enough away, call a cab.” He grabs my wrist, dragging me with him. He’s walking
so fast I can barely keep from tripping.

After about fifteen minutes of
walking, Colin abruptly stops, and I run into him. Within seconds he becomes
visible.

“Now call.” His voice is cold and
distant. The angrier he seems to be, the worse I feel.

“I had Liz call Rob to come to the
diner. He can pick us up.” I answer him in the same pissed off tone that he
did.

“Liz was with you? Are you
freaking kidding me?” He throws his arms up in frustration, and turns away from
me again. I am guessing he is trying to calm himself down. “Did you think it
might be fun to go to a drug raid for girls’ night out?”

I am so upset at this point that I
choose to completely ignore Colin and call Rob.

“Hey, Rob. Did you talk to Liz?”

“Lucy, Thank God. We’ve been
worried sick. Hold on.” I hear Rob talking to someone in the background. “It’s
Lucy. She’s alive. That’s as much as I know.”

“Is Colin with you?” He directs
his question back to me.

“Yes.”

“Good. Where are you guys?”

I look around briefly before
responding. “You know where the old middle school is?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re in front of it.”

“Okay. Stay there. I will pick you
up. Can you give the phone to Colin?”

I hand Colin the phone then walk
over to the school’s playground and sit on the swing. I don’t want to be near
Colin anymore than I have to be.

A few minutes later, Colin comes
over to the playground, but chooses to sit at a picnic table and face away from
me. The silence continues for what seems to be minutes, before Colin speaks.

“Just tell me this. How did you
know about Carl? Why were you there in the first place?” He’s still not looking
at me, and he’s barely reining in his anger.

“You’re never going to give up an
opportunity to save the world. And I am never going to be okay with being second
to the rest of the world- that’s a lot of people. I thought if I could be a
part of it, even by watching from across the street, then maybe we could have a
chance.” I’m slowly pushing the swing back and forth with my feet, while
looking at the ground. Our bad just got worse...and before we were bordering on
a break up. Nothing good can come from this.

“So I was right. You don’t get to
see me when you want, so you just show up in a restaurant full of criminals so
that, what? We can get closer?”

“Okay. I get why you’re mad. But, I
was across the street Colin. I was at a restaurant where a lot of other people
were. I only went in because I thought there was a good chance you might die. But
you’re right. I shouldn’t have come. I should have known that everything has to
go your way.”

“Oh, so because I don’t want you
to screw up a sting operation that will stop drug dealers from selling heroin and
killing people, I’m the bad guy.”

“All this time I thought you
didn’t want me to be around you because you were worried about me. But you were
just afraid that I would jack-up your plans, weren't you? I have been wrong
this entire time. I thought this weekend was for me, I thought your rules were
for me, I thought at Insomnia that you were actually…” My tears keep me from
being able to continue.

“What? What did I do wrong at
Insomnia? Because I left? You said it was fine. Is this the part where you
dredge up every wrong thing I have ever done?"

That’s it. I’m done with this
night. I am done with the super-asshole. I’m just done.

“It’s over, Colin. I am not going
to feel bad for one more second about you. You want to be the good guy. The
hero. You want to feel like being invisible means the whole world counts on
you. But you know what? I can’t count on you. You make me feel unimportant. You
make
me
feel invisible.”

Colin gets up and kicks the picnic
table. “Shit!”

His outburst startles me enough
that I stop talking for a second, but I have resolved myself that I need to do
this.

 
“You know what? You can feel good that
you deserve to have this power, but at the end of the day, you don’t deserve to
be my boyfriend. Those people you save? They don’t listen to you talk after a
bad day. They won’t take care of you when you are hurt or sick. They don’t know
that your favorite food is pancakes, or that you you’re secretly afraid of wolf
spiders. If you don’t take care of the people who love you, then you will be an
amazing and successful, yet completely empty superhero. And I don’t want to be
his completely empty girlfriend.” With that, I get up and walk away. Thank God
he doesn’t follow me this time.

My mind is full of scattering
thoughts of Colin and me. What I said. What he said. Who we used to be. Who we
are now.

It's not until I realize that
nothing looks familiar anymore that my mind comes back to the present. I'm
nowhere near the middle school. I walk a couple more blocks until I see a gas
station, where I won't be alone in the dark or near a major road. After buying
a coffee, I call Liz. She answers on the first ring.

“Lucy, thank God. Rob said that
when he went to pick you guys up, Colin told him to go look for you, but they
couldn’t find you. They are freaking out. I have to call them and tell them
you’re okay before they call the police. Wait a sec. Lucy you sound like you’re
crying. Are you okay?”

“Are you still at the cabin?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Get all of my stuff and pick me
up. I don’t want to go back there. I want to go home.”

“Where are you?”

“Don’t tell the guys, but I am at
a gas station on,” I look to see where I am, “the corner of Morgan and
Crestview.”

Okay. Just hang tight. I won’t
tell the guys where you are, but have to tell them that I talked to you. I
don’t want to have the search and rescue team pissed off at me for not calling
off the dogs when I had the chance.”