Exit, Stage Left

“You’re lonely,” he said.

Thelma jumped, startled. She might not have even heard his voice over the thumping dance music, but it was just at that moment where there was a temporary lull between songs. He stood nearby, his head slightly tilted. Thelma glanced behind her, his words ricocheting in her mind — she wasn’t sure what was more surprising, what he’d said or that he’d noticed and bothered to relay this observation to her at all. He was good looking, tall and thin with artfully spiky hair, but something about him struck her as unsettling. Perhaps it was the way he spoke, or that his eyes were oddly piercing, but either way she felt herself straightening, suddenly alert.

“Yes, I am talking to you.” he said, looking amused. “You’re Thelma, right?”

“Yeah…” she replied, trying to play off her momentarily confusion, tucking a strand of her auburn, shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “Sorry, and you’re…?”

She smiled hopefully, but though her tone was apologetic, she herself was not. Thelma was sure that she had not seen him before, not in this bar or any of the others she and her friends had entered that night. True, he could have overheard her when she had made introductions earlier on to a group of guys by the bar, but somehow she doubted it. Still, she was used to prefacing questions with apologies or some other self-effacing remark, as if to cushion the listener from her inquisitiveness.

“Adrian.” he said, tersely, as if he disliked the sound of his own name. “So, where are all your friends?”

Though she was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question — they were lost in the writhing sea of bodies not two feet away — Thelma felt a prickle of irritation stir in her chest that he was asking, drawing attention to the fact that they were out there, she was not. She looked away from him and gave a little shrug.

“They went to go dance with some guys. They’re here somewhere, I guess.”

Thelma gestured vaguely behind her, the dark corners of the bar seeming to collude with the vagueness of her statement, couples dotted around in the little alcoves around the dancefloor, sitting with their heads together and whispering.

“And you’ve been left to watch the drinks, have you?” he smirked, and Thelma’s fingers tightened around the now faintly tepid glass in her hand.

“What exactly is your point?” she said, as coolly as she could, giving a tight, mirthless smile. “Were you dared to start a conversation with me, or something?”

He laughed at that, though it was friendlier than his tone had been, as if she had impressed him somehow.

“No,” he told her, with a little shake of his head. “I’m talking to you because you’re the only person in this place who seems real.”

“Real?” Thelma was amused, and perhaps just a touch flattered. “Are you implying everyone else here is fictional?”

“They might as well be,” he said, the pitch of his voice dropping, sounding suddenly so jaded and world-weary that she almost felt sorry for him in spite of what he was saying. “Look at it in here. All of the performances. It’s like watching a parade of people in fake skin.”

Thelma hid a smile by taking a sip of her drink. Despite the outlandishness of this statement, she could see what he meant. Some of the girls had make-up on that was so thick and liberally applied that you could easily mistake it for paint. Boys pushed each other and yelled and drew attention to themselves as expertly as any clown in a circus. Thelma found herself thinking back to her school days — she envied not the popular kids, who always had eyes on them, waiting for them to stumble, but the ones who could go anywhere. They weren’t confined to one group; free to speak to anyone they chose. She was fascinated with this uncanny ability, to camouflage so effortlessly and at will. She watched them as though she could simply see and imitate, but whenever she attempted it, people would simply talk over her or stop completely, staring at her as if she had arrived from another planet. She would slink away, embarrassed and confused, unable to do anything but stand on the outside and wonder how she had failed so quickly.

Eventually, she just stopped talking at all.

“So why do you come, then?” she asked, after what could have only been a minute, but to her felt like much longer. “If you think everyone here is pretending?”

He twisted his lips.

“Same reason as you,” he said, sipping his beer, gazing dispassionately at the crowd — no, not at, through, as if he couldn’t even see them, “Because I’m lonely.”

To say she was surprised would have been an understatement. Thelma could not have claimed to know this man (in fact, she was somehow becoming increasingly more convinced his name probably wasn’t really Adrian at all), she never would have expected such an honest answer from a stranger.

“Can I tell you something?” Thelma blurted out, before she had time to rethink and say nothing at all.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then nodded.

“I’ve never been in love,” Thelma said, looking down at her feet and trying to ignore the way an almost painful heat flooded her cheeks. “Is that weird? All my friends act like it’s the craziest thing they’ve ever heard, that I could reach this age without falling in love with someone, but I just…I just haven’t.”

Her face and ears were flushed from the effort of making this confession, and she hastily took another gulp of her drink, though the ice had long since melted. Adrian cast a wry look over at her ‘friends’ (and wasn’t that funny, how seeing through another person’s eyes woke you up to something that had been staring at you in the face for some time).

“And of all the times they’ve claimed to be in love,” he drawled, “Have any of them lasted, or even mattered in the end?”

Thelma stared at him for a moment, watching the way the lights played off his face, and then without warning, she started to laugh. She couldn’t help it, when it was so true. She wondered why she’d never thought of that before, all those nights she’d lain awake, staring up at the ceiling. She had agonised about why she was always, always forgotten about. She knew she wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous or well-connected or wild, but probability indicated that someone would find her appealing enough to pursue. Yet she seemed to have beaten the odds — the amazing invisible girl.

She looked at Adrian and wondered how he had seen past all that. Seen her.

As if reading her mind, he turned to her fully and smiled, just a little quirk of the lip.

“Shall we get out of here?” he asked.

“Oh? And where would we go?” she replied, smiling, but he saw the traces of wariness in her eyes, in her stance. She wanted to go, but something held her back, the pull of doing what was safe, what was easier.

He moved a little closer, not touching, just enough so she could hear him over the music.

“Anywhere we want. Anywhere you want.” he said, holding a hand out to her. “Coming?”

Thelma glanced back at the bodies in the dark, almost indistinguishable from one another. She could barely make out who was where anymore, but she supposed that hardly made a difference now. They were doing fine without her. She didn’t need to worry about them — they hadn’t extended her the same courtesy.

She turned to Adrian.

“I’m coming.” she said, and slipped her hand in his. It was larger than her own, warm and somehow reassuringly solid. Real.

They headed away from the pulsing music and flashing lights, feet crunching over the slightly sticky floor by the bar where numerous drinks had been spilled. Her fingers glided over the bannister as Thelma headed up the stairs with him. She could feel a peculiar lightness in her chest as she glimpsed the crescent moon peeking out from outside, the moonlight and cool air tingling on her skin as Adrian opened the door for her, his gaze on her as, together, the two of them stepped out into the night.

She didn’t look back.