The Other Side of Disappearing

by Kate Clayborn

Briefly, I wonder if anyone’s ever stood up in the middle of a restaurant to ask if there’s a therapist in the room.

When she raises her eyes to mine and slowly smiles back, it suddenly becomes the best date of my life, even though it is not a date at all. Her smile is the same as her condolences. Rare. Honest. Meant.

I watch as her smile comes into full view—and then I’m a beating heart on legs, unimaginably worse off than I was before I heard her, saw her like this. If she goes now, I doubt I’ll ever recover.

Please don’t go, I want to say. Please let me find out how you learned to do a trampoline flip.

I blink, desperate to clear them. We are on a trampoline, for God’s sake.

“I came out of retirement for you.”

Make me say your name a hundred times tonight, I’m thinking. I’ll introduce you to the stars.

“You’re a little gremlin after therapy,” she says. “Just dead-eyed and hungry, eating your fries like an animal and ignoring me.”

“Hi!” says Tegan brightly. “We’re here!” “God,” Salem says. “I’ve been stalling forever. He didn’t even put out snacks.”