All my life, I’ve been a people watcher. But not in a creepy, stalkerish, looking-in-your-windows kind of way. Countless shrinks, doctors, therapists, even a hypnotist, have diagnosed me with all sorts of things. Depersonalization disorder mostly. Even though my mom drags me across the state to get all kinds of medication and professional help, I know I’m not crazy. Funny-minded people are stalkers. Gazing at people with interest is not stalking. However, one day changed my life forever.

I was on the way to therapy, riding the elevator. Just then, the doors opened a floor early, and the most heart-stoppingly gorgeous boy I’d ever seen stepped on. Kids my age are not interested in me; I’m invisible to everyone; I think that’s why I started watching people, anyway, because even if I jumped on a table and sang the National Anthem wearing nothing but a star-spangled banner draped artfully around my shoulders, no one would look at me twice. Lucky for me, for one day, for one moment, I was visible. Meaning, I was sure he could see me; he stared for an instant too long, his hazel eyes half-covered by a lock of messy dark hair. No one had ever really looked at me like that before.

On the elevator, I saw him again, and again, and again, every Tuesday. Precisely what happened on the elevator that first time I could never be sure, but I’m almost positive it was love at first sight. Quirky and strange though I am, I’m still a girl – a girl wishing for a fairy-tale ending like everyone else. Right there, on that dingy elevator, I was sure I had found my Prince Charming.

Soon I started living for Tuesdays. Tuesdays when I would see him slouch into that elevator and slouch right off again, never saying a word, perfection in a hoodie and battered Converses. Unattainable, I thought, beautiful boys don’t go for psycho girls – until one day.

Voosh, the doors slid open like always, and he took a step, ready to start the weekly journey that took him away from the elevator, away from me, the journey that made my heart fall to my feet in protest of another one of my lame encounters with the love of my life, when he stopped and looked at me, my heart jumping back up to beat an incessant tattoo against my ribcage, which I swear he could see beneath my old Ramones T-shirt; he opened that perfect mouth and said in a voice dripping with a painful casualness: “My name’s Xavier, by the way, what’s yours?”

What, I thought; I was paralyzed; my name, my name, what was it again?

Xavier looked at me, a half smile playing on his lips. “Your name … what is it?”

“Zoé.”