It’s always easier when I’m riding on the train. Looking out the window, the trees and the buildings and the very soul of the city blur together until I can forget my troubles. I swear the train travels so fast that it has the power to suspend time. The only problem is the train always has to stop.

I press my headphones firmly on my ears. They are the sound-canceling type because I hate to think of other passengers listening to my music. I hate to think of the other passengers thinking about me at all, really. That’s why I always sit near the window and wear the most ferocious face I can conjure. It discourages visitors.

The train senses my reluctance to face the world, I think, because it stops suddenly. The automated message that announces the stops breaks into my reverie with a crackle of static and a shrill voice, even louder than the music drumming through my mind.

This is my stop, I think as the doors lurch open and the others start to leave. I watch as they go. A group of teenage girls are trying hard to hide the fact that they’re trashed as they stagger out in high heels, laughing loudly and holding each other for support. The other passengers are a sea of business casual until a harried-looking man catches my eye as he walks by. His jacket is slung over his briefcase, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His eyes are so blue. He looks too young to be working. All at once I feel the need to take my headphones off.

I stand and quickly squeeze past the middle-aged woman next to me. I make it through the doors just before they swing closed. One of my headphones falls out during my dash to the exit, and my music blares loudly into the subway station. I scan the crowd for the blue-eyed office worker.

The subway platform is dingy and crowded. Fluorescent lights flicker overhead, reminding me of a horror film, and I suddenly feel like a fool standing in a crowd, looking for someone I don’t even know, on a whim.

The cold air as I walk out to the street hits me like a slap in the face. I hunch my shoulders and begin the shuffle toward my apartment. It takes me about 10 minutes to walk to the safety of home on a good day, and today is not a good days. The late-night workers walk with pent-up aggression after a long day of corporate drudgery. Students blink wide-eyed at the world, thinking of all they can learn from it even as their eyes are ringed with exhaustion. Shoppers clasp their finds to their chests possessively, suspiciously.

They’re all packed tightly around me, dragging me down into the monotony of their daily lives so effectively that I can feel myself fading into the dust I was made from. The color slides from my eyes and falls into a puddle at my feet until I am as monochromatic as the rest, but I continue home, pretending I didn’t just watch the world fade to black and white.

I am crossing the decrepit bridge to my apartment when I see him. He is leaning against the crumbling bridge twenty people in front of me. The stranger with the blue eyes.

You don’t know him, the cautious part of my mind tells me, even as I slip through the crowd to get closer. My heart is suddenly pounding like it used to when I was a real girl, and I am silently cursing myself as I walk toward him.

What am I going to say? Hello my name is Alex and I’m very lonely.

And then he is in front of me. And I am acting like a very loquacious rock. He notices me, and I am surprised again by his blue eyes staring into mine. And at least for this one moment, I don’t feel quite so alone.