The Intrusion

Two

[Jordan]

I open the door to my apartment to find my roommate Melanie sitting on the couch in the living room with a book open on her lap as she gazes out the window.

I slip out of my ballet flats and lay them on the small shoe rack by the door, my legs shaking. I can't get that shadow figure out of my head.

"Hey Mel," I call as I head into the living room.

It's like I'm breaking her from a trance. She pulls her eyes away from the window, looks at me and smiles. "Hey Jordan, I was wondering when you'd get home from work. Late night?"

"Yeah," I respond. "Dave wanted me to back-fix some drawing that Luke did. It took forever."

And then I got a bit held up on my walk home...

Mel snorts through her nose. "That sucks." She pauses. "I just didn't know when you'd be getting back. I was getting a bit worried. It's almost 8pm."

"I would have called you, Mel," I begin. "But..."

"We really should get new phone plans," she interrupts me before I can finish my sentence.

"We're only going to be here like, another month and a half, is it really even worth it?" But really, it's just that I'm so lazy I don't want to go through all the effort, even though I know it's a good idea.

"We should at least get burner phones," Mel suggests. "It's ridiculous that we can't call each other right now unless we have Wi-Fi."

"Why don't we just get walkie-talkies?" I joke, trying to get my mind off of my walk home.

"Ha ha." Mel rolls her eyes at what I thought was a clever suggestion, but a hint of a smile creeps across her face.

She looks back down at her book, but only for about five seconds before her gaze returns to the window.

"Anything interesting going on out there?" I walk over and stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that spans the length of our living room, gazing out over the city.

"Oh, nothing much. Chad threw another fit, and Rebecca sent him to his room again."

"Typical Chad and Rebecca." I grin.

"Jack isn't home yet," she continues. "His dog's made a good mess of the room, though. That should be funny when he gets back from work."

"Oh yeah?" I search for Jack's apartment across the street.

"See, Spot's pulled the stuffing out of the couch at the corner." She gets up and stands next to me. "And then he put his chew toy in the hole to try to hide the evidence."

"Ha! Jack's going to be so pissed."

Mel and I continue to gaze out the window in silence for a while longer. We can't help it. We are both fascinated by people watching. Sometimes we make up names for them or stories about them together, but mostly we just watch quietly.

There is something amazing about having a friend I can sit with for an hour without saying a single word but not feel an ounce of awkwardness. I've never had a friend like that before. My social life has always been go-go-go, but for whatever reason, when I'm with Mel, I'm okay with sitting quietly and doing nothing.

I guess people have a way of affecting you if you spend enough time around them. Changing you. Maybe it's not always in a good way, but sometimes, maybe it's for the better.

I shake myself out of the spell. My stomach grumbles, letting me know it's way past dinner time. "Are we still on for dinner tonight?"

"Yup," Mel says. "It's Tuesday, isn't it?"

I grin, flashing my teeth. Mel and I have our "spot" that we go to for a drink or two and dinner every Tuesday evening. It's kind of our thing, or at least as much of a "thing" as it can be, considering this is technically only our third Tuesday in Vancouver.

"Just give me like, two minutes to get ready," Mel says.

She rushes off down the hall, and I stand alone in the living room, trying to stop thinking about what I saw on the street as a shiver rushes through me.

I let out a sigh, and turn to take a seat on the couch. In passing, I catch my reflection in the mirror on the wall. My hands go to my hair. That little sprint and the wind on the walk home turned it into a bird's nest. I adjust it to make it look at least some semblance of presentable, and once I'm about as satisfied as I'm going to be without actually getting a brush, I turn from the mirror, only to be greeted by my reflection again on the other side of the room.

I'm startled for half a second. This apartment is taking longer to get used to than I'd like.

The building was renovated in the mid 90's when people were obsessed with mirrors, and the interiors haven't been touched since. Almost every wall in our apartment is covered in them from floor to ceiling—except the walls with the windows, that is. There are even cute little cut-outs in the glass where the thermostat and outlets are.

When Melanie and I first walked into our apartment, we broke into fits of laughter. The company set us up with the place, so we hadn't seen any pictures of it before we got here. We ran around the apartment like children giggling. 

"Oh my God, Mel, look at this! There is a cutout in the mirror for the thermostat!"

"Jordan! Look! I can watch TV facing the opposite direction!"

And then we noticed the windows.

We both grew up in the suburbs, so we'd been around cities our whole lives, but neither of us had lived in the city before. Living in a skyscraper is fascinating—being able to look out the windows and see life. Who needs the TV when you've got this view?

We both loved it. And eventually, we started watching.

At first, we watched the streets. We watched the cars and people walking or riding their bikes. After a while, that got boring. Being this high up, we couldn't see much other than people-shaped dots or car-shaped boxes moving around.

That was when we moved on to watching the rooms.

Maybe that's why this city gives me the weird feeling of being watched. Everything is so open. Exposed. All the barriers are made of glass, so sometimes it seems like there are no barriers at all. It's like anyone can see you at any time, or maybe more than that, because behind that feeling, there's also this other bizarre and unexplainable sensation that keeps pooling in the pit of my stomach—the fear that anything can get in.