I step onto the subway. It’s as it always is. There’s that old woman, with the purse that looks like a wicker chair, and her granddaughter, the one who smells like cigar smoke and wears bright coral lipstick. And there’s the middle-aged man, in the battered old suit and every day a new tie. Today it’s an orange one, with little cauldrons on it. 

It’s almost Halloween. The spindly trees on the streets are either bare or adorned with scarves of orange, crimson and gold. Children chatter on and on about their costumes. Storefronts are festooned with advertisements for Halloween sales. Or, they were. Things might have changed. Things have probably changed.

The doors shut behind me. I stay there, and nobody notices. They never do. They never have. I look around. The red-headed woman, with the children, is sitting in a different spot than normal. I wonder why. Her toddler is attempting to crawl away, towards a stranger.

That’s when I notice her.

I’ve never seen her before. There’s always new people, but she’s different. She’s standing, hand on one of the poles, hunched over a book. Poetry. Her hands look so soft and pale, like marshmallows. Delicate marshmallows. Her blonde hair is cut in a bob, and she has a purple knit hat on. Even from here, I can smell her ginger-mint perfume.

The toddler is still crawling towards her. His mom is preoccupied with his younger sister, who is crying. The toddler reaches out for the new woman. He grabs a fistfull of the rhinestones on her skirt. She yelps, then jumps, and lands on one of the toddler’s hands. Very gracefully. The toddler starts wailing, his cries combine with his sister’s to make a symphony of obnoxious baby noises.

The mother looks up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” she shouts, to no one in particular. “Kyle, come here!” Her toddler – Kyle – looks up for a second. He continues to cry. The granddaughter who smells like cigar smoke walks over, picks him up, and sets him on the seat next to his mom.

The subway stops. I look at the girl, seeing if she will leave. She closes her book, and slips it into her small Fjallraven backpack. The doors open. She starts to walk out, hesitating for no one. I watch her as she leaves, her skirt swaying behind her and I breathe in her ginger-mint scent one more time before she’s gone.

I wish I could follow her. But I’m stuck here. If only my killer just hadn’t. My death could’ve been so different.

I wait all day, watching the normal slew of people drift in and out of the subway car, my mind fuzzier than normal, longing to see the girl again. All day, I think I see her in familiar faces. The same freckle that she had, on an old man. Rhinestones, but on a jacket. A teenager with the same Fjallraven backpack. 

I wait, and watch the clock tick. I watch the minutes pass. They are slow. Agonizing. Usually, I might occupy myself by making stories up about the people around me. I could almost recite them from memory. That woman over there, the ugly brunette, was a long-lost Russian princess, and that man, the one with the tattoo of a crow on his wrist, he was tracking her down. 

In my stories, anything was possible. But now, I can’t focus like usual. I can’t get her out of my mind. I just can’t shake the feeling that… something will happen. The feeling is neither here nor there, neither black nor white, neither good nor evil. It’s just there.

I’ve never felt this before. This longing, to see someone again. It’s a new sensation, and I can’t focus. 

I’ve almost lost hope. She is not coming. She will not come. But then she does. She steps onto the subway, and sits down. There is room for her not to stand this time. It’s late. Almost ten o’clock. I watch her as she reads. Her face stays the same, content yet bored, her eyes blank and her mouth slack. I try to memorize her freckles, making constellations on her cheeks and nose. I watch her until she leaves. 

And when she does, her hand brushes against mine, and I try in vain to grab it. My fingers slip through hers, like a stream of water over a bed of rocks, reminding me that I’m just not enough. Reminding me, in a way so powerful, that no matter how much I long, I will never be able to see the sun, I will never be able to jump in a pile of fire-colored leaves, I will never be able to feel sun-kissed water on my skin.

Every day, she comes like clockwork. Every day, I watch her, silently. Over the weeks, people don parkas and mittens, hats and scarves. I still long for her. I still wish, somehow, I could greet her and tell her, I think I love you. But a wish can only get you so far. 

I used to believe in wishes. Or, I think I did. I can’t remember a lot about my life. Just little things. Strong hands wrapped around an orange mug filled to the brim with a hot liquid. Sunlight caught in someone’s golden eyelashes. A laughing smile, red-rimmed lips. They all sit in my brain, pieces of a quilt yet to be put together.

When my death had started, I tried to piece together what had happened. Why. I gave up after who knows how long. It was like running in place. Which I did sometimes, to keep busy. That was in my exercise phase. I used to call it my “Exorcize Regimen”. But you can’t change your appearance in death. I didn’t gain the muscles I wanted.

I used to wonder what I look like. The same as when I died, I expect. But I don’t really know. Once in a while, on the rare occasion, I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in a camera or mirror. But it always flickers away before I can study it.

Just like she does, every day.

I sit down. On the floor of the subway. I watch her, with someone else. Day after day. I sit and watch her giggle and kiss him. One time, she is gone for two days. I fall into despair, if that is even possible. If I can even feel anything. The next day, when she comes back, I feel as though life rejoins my death, and makes me more whole than I was without her.

Her golden hair is longer than before, and her bangs are gone, but she’s still beautiful. She will always be beautiful. He thinks so. I heard him whisper it in her ear. They thought no one heard them. I did. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could erase him from my thoughts, like death erased my memories.

Sometimes I wish…. Sometimes I wished I was alive. I have never wished that before. I have been content. Content with my lifeless state, content with being stuck. Content. I wish I was alive. Then I could move on. I could take a different subway. I could walk away.

I have to watch her every day. Her cheeks are usually flushed in the winter, clear in the summer, freckles dotting her milk-white skin. I memorized the poise of her fingers, the scars on her hands. I notice the delicate slope of her collarbone, the dip of her thin ankles. Her nails were perfect curves, every day. I noticed she had the half-moon scar of a nail on her palm, under her pinkie finger.

I had the same one. I don’t remember doing it in my life, but I must’ve. I could faintly see a scar on my lifeless hands. 

She stopped coming. It was winter.  I think. Maybe fall. I couldn’t feel. I didn’t think. I tried to cry, but tears had long left my body. I tried to scream, but nobody heard. I tried to kill myself, but you can only stop a beating heart. I forgot everything before her. I forgot the Russian princess and the mom and her kids and the spies in my mind.

All I could think of was her.

Her milky white skin, her bright clothes. All I could think of was her  dimples and her cheekbones, her brown doe eyes, her white-blonde eyelashes. Her small, round ears and thin neck, narrow shoulders and delicate, bird-like collarbone, her strong arms, small breasts and lean torso. 

She filled my thoughts, day in and day out, until all I wanted was to stop the torrent of memories and fantasies from overwhelming me. 

I made myself forget her, bit by bit, until all I could remember was her ginger-mint perfume.

It stayed with me, that blend of flavors, until I saw her again.

This time, I said what I had been meaning to, all along.

I think I love you.