Being Invisible

by Penny Baldwin

  We had just made popcorn and started the movie, when Liz decided it would be a good time to start some drama.

  “So, Lucy, when do you think we can go shopping? I know you and Jeff are going out again this week, so I wanted to make sure to plan our trip around your date.”

  Colin, who had been engaged in the movie up to this point, glanced in my direction, eyebrows raised in question.

  “He wants to take me to Real Steel on Friday so that’s out. Any other day is good.” I jumped at the chance to have our second date at a movie, since I wouldn’t have to listen to him talk the whole time.

  “What?” Colin asked, clearly pissed at me. “That’s your birthday. Didn’t you think your friends might want to spend it with you? You’ve been on like two dates, and he’s taking you out for your birthday?”

  Everyone turned to look at Colin, surprised by his outburst, then looked at me for my response.

  “He doesn’t even know it’s my birthday. It’s just a movie. I figured we could celebrate my birthday over the weekend.” I answered him slowly, not sure what to make of his outburst.

  “Fine. Whatever.” He said, looking back at the movie.

  “What do you mean, ‘Fine. Whatever?’ Am I not allowed to make plans without checking with you first?” Now I was getting pissed.

  Drew started to say something, but Colin cut him off. “Did I say that? All I was trying to say is that it’s a little surprising that you barely know this guy, yet you’re hanging out with him on your birthday instead of your friends.”

  It was Liz’s turn to try to smooth things over. “I don’t think that’s what Lucy was thinking, she was probably...”

  And my turn to interrupt. “You can learn a lot about a person by hanging out with them twice. Take you!” I yell at Colin. “By the third time I met you I knew you were a complete…” I paused, grasping for the right word. ‘Douche Canoe!” I finished, and then nodded at Annie to thank her for the word.

  “Oh like the guy you’re going on a date with is so much better. The best ones are always guys who hang out at bars. Let me guess, he’s the guy with the jeans falling so far down you can see his Tasmanian Devil boxers. Or wait no, the guy who couldn’t keep his hands off your ass the whole song, even though you kept pushing him away.”

  The room became silent, minus the movie quietly playing in the background, long since forgotten.

  “How did you know about the guys at the bar? Were you there?” I asked.

  “Uh, no. I just know the type.”

  “Jeans falling so far down you can see his Tasmanian Devil boxers? That’s not a type, that’s a description you give a sketch artist. Why the hell were you there?”

  Colin glanced at Drew, unsure of what to say, which caused Drew to speak up. “He came with me. I wanted to go.”

  “What? Why? Liz asked, surprised.

  “I wanted to see what you were doing. I was...worried.”

  “Worried? About what? That I was going to trip while dancing, and need you to call 911?”

  “No of course not, I just...”

  “Wait.” Liz interrupted. We didn’t see you guys there. “Were you hiding? Why didn’t you just come over to us?”

  Drew let out a breath, but didn’t speak.

  “You were spying on us?” I asked.

  “We were just checking in. We didn’t want to interrupt.” Colin was acting like it was no big deal, which was only adding fuel to the fire.

  “What is wrong with you two?” Liz’s voice was getting louder by the second. “We are amazing. We are the kind of girls who you should be telling your moms about. Drew says we are ‘dating’ but won’t call me his girlfriend. Colin won’t even acknowledge that he is practically in love with Lucy. You just want us to hang around, helping Colin get above 150 pounds, waiting for the two of you to stop being dumbasses. So what do you do? You follow us to our girls night out, spy on us like you want to make sure we’re not going to meet some other guys, then never do anything about it.” Liz threw her arms up in defeat.

  “We just wanted to make sure you guys were safe!” Drew practically yelled in the attempt to get us to see their side.

  “Don’t worry guys. If someone tries to snag our purses, we can save them ourselves. We don’t need a couple of wannabe superheroes to lurk in the corners of bars in case we need them.” I was getting tired of this whole conversation, and I didn’t think I could hear another word about them needing to protect us.

  “You know what? Just go home.” I stated matter-of-factly.

  “Lucy--” Colin started, but I stopped him.

  “No. You don’t want me. But you get mad at me when someone else dates me. Drew acts like he doesn’t want a girlfriend, but clearly can’t take the possibility that Liz might have fun without him. She’s right. You guys don’t deserve us.”

  “Listen to Lucy. Just leave.” Liz walked over to the couch and turned up the movie to let them know she was done with them.

  The guys just stood there for a second, probably unsure of what to do.

  James, who I had almost forgotten was even there, stood up. “The girls said to leave. You need to go.” He opened the door for them, and gave them an uncompromising look.

  As soon as they left, Liz dropped the remote and ran up the stairs. Annie and I were close behind.

  ----------

  “Just text him back and get it over with.” Annie whined, throwing the phone my way.

  It had been three days, and the guys had pretty much taken turns texting and calling us all day long. Neither of us bothered to answer, and poor Annie was trying to take a nap on the couch. Finally I decided to give in, tired of the constant ringing.

  “What do you want?” I texted, trying to make it as difficult as possible for him.

  “Lucy?” Colin seemed surprised to hear from me.

  “Yes. What do you want?”

  “I want to tell you the truth. You and Liz.”

  “So you admit you were lying?”

  “Just omitting.”

  “How do I know you won’t ‘omit’ when, if we talk to you?"

  Because, once you hear what I say, you will know that I am putting all of my trust into you. You can decide if you can do the same thing for me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Holy $#!% Batman Mix

  “How did I let you talk me into this?” We were in front of Colin’s apartment, and Liz was less than enthused. But I could tell, like me, she couldn’t resist her curiosity.

  “Colin said he wanted us to know the truth. If we don’t like his ‘truth’ we can just leave, okay?”

  Liz took a deep breath, then answered. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  As soon as I knocked on the door, Colin answered. He seemed relieved to see us. “Thanks for coming.”

  Drew jumped from the couch as soon as he saw us, and pulled Liz to him, taking her back with him to the couch. Liz started to pull away, but Drew seemed determined to keep her close. Liz didn’t try very hard either. Despite her anger, I could tell she was happy to see him.

  Colin pulled up a chair for himself, then motioned for me to sit on the couch before taking his seat.

  “First of all, Liz, I owe you an apology. Drew wasn’t at the bar. He just said he was, because he was protecting me. He thought it was a really stupid idea.”

  Liz looked at me then at Drew unsure of what to do.

  “Secondly...” Colin took a deep breath before he continued. “I went to the bar.”

  I rolled my eyes, starting to say something, but he interrupted.

  “I know it was stupid. I wish I had a better excuse, but… I was jealous. I just wanted to see for myself that you were there to, you know, meet guys.”

  “So it’s true?” I asked, just as frustrated as when we arrived. “You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either?”

  “No! I don’t want anyone else to have you, because I want you.” He trailed off, worried about how I would handl
e his admission.

  “If that’s true, then why didn’t you call me for our date? Why didn’t you try to kiss me again? You knew I liked you. I wasn’t subtle.”

  “Because I was trying to get myself together. I didn’t know how to tell you. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, I could barely believe it myself.”

  “What?” I asked, incredulous. I felt like I was trying to solve a riddle without half of the clues.

  “It’s cool, man, tell her.” Drew urged him on, while pulling Liz into him, happy to have her close.

  “Okay.“ Colin took a deep breath, clearly nervous, which was making me nervous. “So you know Drew’s major is chemistry, right?” Liz and I nodded, waiting.

  “Well, he had an experiment he was doing for a project. We were heading out afterwards to a party, so I went with him. He was working, but I was goofing off. Juggling anything that looked like a ball, stacking anything that looked like it could be stacked. What can I say? I get bored easily. Just when Drew told me to knock it off, I dropped something, knocking over a bunch of chemicals. As soon as they hit me, I knew I had screwed up. Drew tried to rinse it off, but it was too late.” He paused, and I could tell whatever he wanted to say was going to be difficult. “I had a cut on my arm. The chemicals spilled on me and got into my cut. When that happened I...disappeared.”

  I guess his long pause was so that we could soak this revelation in, but what Colin didn’t understand was that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  “What the hell?” Liz voiced my thoughts. “You brought us here to tell us this? How stupid do you think we are?” She got up to leave, with me close behind. Before we could actually get out of the door, we stopped in our tracks.

  Colin, who was right in front of us... actually did...disappear.

  “What the hell just happened?” I asked to no one in particular, mostly because no one in particular was in front of me anymore.

  “He’s obviously telling the truth.” Drew said, breaking our silence. “And he was just as freaked out when it happened as you guys are now. That’s why he didn’t want to tell you.”

  I walked back over to the couch, the need to sit down overriding any other thought.

  Suddenly, Colin was next to me, making me jump practically off the couch.

  “Sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean to startle you. I forgot for a second that you couldn’t see me.”

  “When?” I managed to ask. “When did this happen? Before you met me, or?” I looked at Colin hoping to make some kind of sense of what he told us.

  “Before. When I told you about the old lady? That was true. The only part I left out was that I was trying to use my invisibility to help her. Before that, all I wanted to do was get rid of it. Believe me, Drew and I tried. We didn’t know which chemicals mixed together, we couldn’t duplicate the solution, couldn’t make it go away.” Colin stood up and started pacing.

  ”That day was the first time that I thought that I might be able to use it to help people. I became invisible, and then jumped him. Drew helped me pull him down, but the guy still got away. That’s when I realized that my superpowers were useless if I couldn’t back it up. I wanted to become the kind of guy who deserved to be invisible. Someone who was strong, who could think on his feet, someone who was fast. ”

  “So you started running." I thought back to the day that I met him.

  Colin nodded. “Shows you what kind of superhero I am. I did a better job of knocking you down than I did the purse- snatcher. And I wasn’t even invisible then. I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  Up until that point Liz had hung back toward the door, ready to bolt at any second. Colin’s story must have pulled on her heartstrings, because she grabbed Drew’s hand and pulled him toward the door. “We’ll be back in one hour.” Liz warned. “Don’t piss her off while we’re gone.”

  “I’ll try my best.” Colin said, obviously unsure of where I was at with the whole disappearing act story.

  After they closed the door, my rapid-fire questions started.

  “Can you disappear whenever you want to?”

  “I can now. It took a while to get the hang of it.”

  “Besides the bar, have you ever been near me while invisible?”

  “No. Never. I wouldn’t do that to you… I mean other than that one time.”

  "Your clothes obviously disappeared too. Can you make anything disappear?"

  “I figured out my clothes, a few small objects. Nothing big yet. I have to concentrate pretty hard. And only when I’m invisible too.”

  “Why couldn’t you take me on a date? By then you already knew you had the power so why didn’t you call? Text me? Anything?”

  “Something was wrong. I was sick, and it stopped working. I randomly disappeared and reappeared. Something about having a virus caused it not to work. I guess I have to be careful and try not to get sick again. I didn’t know what to tell you. Then it seemed like it had been too long. When you texted me, my mom was at my door. Drew was trying to give her excuses not to come in. My mom would flip her shit if she knew. She’s a worrier.”

  I laughed, thinking about how my own mom might react.

  “In the meantime, I was hiding in my bathroom, playing a zombie game on my cell phone, while flipping like a light switch, disappearing, reappearing, all this time trying not to cough to give away that I was there.”

  I laughed at the image.

  “She kept telling Drew that she didn’t mind waiting for me, despite the fact that he told her I would be gone most of the day. Finally, Drew said that he had a girl in his bedroom to get her to leave. She was appalled. He was mortified, and I never heard the end of it from either of them.”

  “So what you’re saying is that it really wasn’t a good time?” I laughed, most of my anger gone. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him.

  “You could say that.” Colin laughed too, relieved that I was listening to him.

  “I was afraid that I would never be able to go outside again. Drew kept trying to figure out how to help me. We were about to give up and ask someone for help. But then, my virus went away, and everything went back to normal. Or as normal as a guy who turns invisible can be. When I saw you at the gym, I...”

  “Wait.” I interrupted. Were you invisible at the gym?”

  “Not at first. But then I heard something. I, like you, wasn’t expecting anyone. I wanted to have the element of surprise against my attacker. As soon as I saw it was you, I made myself appear, just in time for you to freak out and trip over me. I was so happy to see you. I thought about you all the time. But I knew there was no way I could explain not contacting you. I didn’t want to keep making excuses to not see you, so I just didn’t do anything.”

  “Wow. This is...a lot to take in.” I answered honestly. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. I wish I could have told you sooner. It’s just...it’s a lot.”

  “Yeah.” We sat on the couch together, silent, for a long time, when something occurred to me, and the stress of everything finally got to me. I started laughing. And I couldn’t stop.

  “What?” Colin asked, concerned with my breakdown.

  “I’m sorry. It’s really not funny. I don’t even know why I’m laughing. It’s just that now I get why you put The Greatest American Hero on your mp3. You were trying to be like him.” I said through tears. I knew that he didn’t really do it, but he had put me through enough. It was his turn.

  “That wasn’t me! It was Drew!” That just made me laugh more.

  “It’s true. The greatest love of all really is inside yourself.”

  For some reason he didn’t think it was as funny as I did. “That’s it. You’re done.” Then he grabbed me, flipped me on my back and tickled me. “Might as well give you a real reason to laugh.”

  I was done for. I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. And just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, he leaned d
own and kissed me. And I shut up.

  That’s the kiss I remember.

  Up until that point, I wasn’t fully aware of the perks of Colin getting into superhero shape. Sure, I knew he could save people and all, but the benefit of his superhero six pack was a new finding.

  After pulling away from the kiss, Colin lifted me up easily, another talent I hadn’t taken into consideration: Ability to carry me to a more conducive environment for making-out.

  He walked into his bedroom, and practically threw me down on the bed. I drew him in, not wanting his lips off of mine. He pulled his shirt off in one quick motion before returning to me and putting his hands on my back underneath my shirt.

  “Hi honey, we’re home!” Drew yelled from the front of Colin’s apartment.

  “Where do you think they are?” Liz played along.

  Colin shook his head and stood up, pulling me up at the same time. He threw his shirt on and fixed mine for me before heading out to the kitchen.

  “Did she ask you to be invisible for it? Make it easier for her?” Liz giggled at Drew’s teasing.

  “No. But it would be nice if the two of you disappeared.” Colin smacked Drew on the head.

  While the two of them bickered, Liz and I decided to make spaghetti for everyone and hang out. The four of us spent dinner discussing Colin’s status as a superhero, with Liz insisting on using her patented list-making skills to come up with superhero names. Drew’s favorite was Waldo, because then everyone would say ‘Where’s Waldo?’ when he disappeared. Colin didn’t think the list was as hilarious as we did.

  After dinner, the guys decided to “lay down the law.” Drew told Liz that she should tell every guy she knew that she had a boyfriend, and Colin insisted that I call Jeff that night to tell him that I was no longer in the market for dating.

  When I woke up that morning, I had no idea that my day would end the way it did.

  That night when I went to bed I was the girlfriend of a superhero.

  Chapter Twelve