“You look really scared,” she said. “Man, you’re white.”
“Greta! Run! There’s a—” I whipped around and looked down the staircase toward my assassin. There was no one there. It was absolutely empty and silent both on the steps and down in the Tunnelgatan. On the street where we stood, people were passing, talking, laughing, some arm in arm, happy Swedes out on the town, their secrets well hidden.
“A what?” she asked.
Though there wasn’t anyone down there now, I was certain someone had been chasing me or at least following me.
“Nothing,” I said to her. “I’m fine. I didn’t need your money.” I reached into a pocket and handed it back to her, even though I was feeling pretty weak and horribly hungry. Maybe my condition had made me hallucinate?
“You didn’t eat? What are you, nuts?”
I hadn’t wanted to interact with anyone, especially anyone Swedish, which had eliminated a rather large number of options.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I live nearby.”
“Near here? Really?”
“Of course. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, I just thought that maybe—”
“You should go back to the hotel. It isn’t entirely safe downtown late at night. Although you know that thing I said about Swedish cops being scary and kids should fear them? Not true. They’re great—really kind and nice. I can’t believe you fell for that.”
“Didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Boys are so funny. I knew you’d fall for the challenge to head out into Stockholm alone at night too. Only an idiot would do that.”
I didn’t know how to respond, but if I was such an idiot, then why was she talking to me, and why had she followed me, and why was she just standing there now, not moving, not going away?
“Well,” she said, “I must be leaving. Tallyho!”
“You’re lonely.”
“No I’m not.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it really? Well, just watch me walk away, right now.” She didn’t move an inch. She was looking at me like she wanted me to say something, tell her she could hang out with me, come back to the hotel and meet Grandpa. As I’ve said, I’m not really into girls, not yet anyway, though I must admit that lately I’ve been noticing them a bit. They’re kind of neat, in a way, sort of. I was finding myself kind of, almost, checking them out these days. It was weird. But this one was awfully strange-looking. It wasn’t her looks that interested me. It was something about her as a person, something behind her eyes. She was, I hate to say it, very interesting.
“Look at this,” she said suddenly and grabbed her bike with one hand and lifted it high into the air. Man, she was really strong.
“Yip!!” cried her monkey and raised his hands above his head as if in a cheer.
“That’s, uh, that’s impressive.”
“Think you can do it?”
I didn’t want to. Not that I was worried I’d fail—I just didn’t want to. I’m not sensitive. I waved her off.
“You know, sensitive isn’t such a bad thing,” she said, looking at me like she liked me or something, reading my mind. We were making eye contact. I looked away.
“I’m not that.”
“Well, I am sometimes. Strong and sensitive, that’s me!”
“And modest.”
“Nothing wrong with believing in yourself!”
“I’ve got to get going.”
“Sure, go straight down this street in the direction you came from. It’s, uh, actually pretty safe. Stockholm is really tame. You should be just fine.”
“Thanks…see you later.”
“Yeah, later. Sure.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
She wasn’t moving, so I did. I turned my back on her and started walking away, but then I heard her calling out to me. I turned around.
“Remember me!” she shouted. She was holding her bike high in the air.
Not long after, probably less than a minute, I turned around to see where she was going. But she’d vanished. I stood there and looked in the direction she must have walked or ridden, and for a few seconds I had the silly idea that she had never been there, that Greta Longrinen truly didn’t exist, never had. I wondered if she was someone I’d invented to give me courage, to push me to be stronger, to deal with my troubles. If so, it was pretty strange that I’d come up with a girl.
There I was, silently talking to myself again. There’s definitely a good me and a bad me inside my head, fighting each other to make the right decisions.
But I shook all that off. Greta had to be real. I had been talking to her, hadn’t I, a whole bunch of times? And the guy chasing me in the tunnel… he was real too, wasn’t he? It was strange though: he hadn’t said a word, and I’d never really seen him, not clearly. But man, it had been awfully frightening, as real as the light wind I could feel now on my face as I walked down this busy street toward the hotel.
I’m not sensitive.
Soon I was thinking about the hotel and Grandpa. Where the heck was he? Wasn’t he searching for me? Were the Grand’s employees going to throw me out into the street again? I’d escaped death and now I was heading back to the only place that offered any kind of comfort. But would it?
I’m not…sensitive.