The Girl Who Disappeared

Originally published May 29, 2020

Hey everyone--here's an unrefined short story that was stuck in my notes for a while. Hope you enjoy it, and sending my thoughts of health and safety from this internet void into your homes.

x.

O

Valerie wasn’t all that surprised when she disappeared, just mildly annoyed. Her morning had been normal, no nausea or fever, only the casual irritation that exuded from Ben every morning since their fight a few nights ago. They had been sitting as they often did, at their round kitchen table. Ben was reading, and Val was scrolling, waiting for Ben to decide that it was time for bed. In her earlier relationships, she had tried to maintain control of everything, but with Ben, it suddenly seemed easier to let him pick and choose things. Val had pulled on a comfortable sweater, trying to communicate that she was tired. She was always tired, but now she was particularly exhausted. Ben looked up and caught her eyelids drooping, met her gaze with an irritated nose flair. God, I really don't have the energy to fight right now, Val thought.

"Sometimes," he said, looking at her, "I feel like you ignore me."

"Ignore you?" She asked. "What did I do?"

He didn't respond. Later that night though, when they were lying together, with his hand resting on her stomach, he said "If you were around more often, maybe."

"The house?"

"Yes. I'd like you to be here when I get home."

He didn't need to say anything else. Val had known exactly what he meant. She nodded. She saw herself giving up her job, buying some Anthropologie aprons, cookbooks.

"It'll be nice for you, not having to go into the office every day," He muttered, finally dropping off to sleep. It will be nice to quit work. Val tried the thought out, tried to make it true. It didn't work. She looked at Ben. He seemed asleep.

“Go fuck yourself,” she had whispered to him and watched his lips curl into a smile. She left in the middle of the night, intending never to come back. Eventually, though, Val had returned. Ben is nice, and the sex is fine. I love him, so what does liking him matter all that much? Val had justified as she re-entered their apartment, apologized profusely, went to the kitchen to mix him a drink. They had never spoken of it outright again. Why hadn't she disappeared then? It would have been more convenient. It would have been delicious to watch Ben drop his frozen demeanor, express some surprise. It would have saved her from weeks of cleaning, ignoring emails from work friends, and numbing herself.

She did regret that it happened where it did: her therapist, Dr. Martina, had welcomed her into the dull office, as always, turned on the sound machine, placed by the door to ensure Val’s secret insecurities didn’t snake their way into the waiting room. “I have to pee,” Val had said, blunt because she could be sharp in this room. Martina was supposed to swallow sharpness: and she did.

“Bathroom key is on the hook outside,” she reminded Val pleasantly. Always pleasant. that’s why they pay her the big bucks, Val thought. Why I do, anyway. The hallway walls were their familiar two-tone beige, the carpet was still made up of alternating blue squares. She peed in the bathroom with the tiny metal stalls, holding the plastic blue tag that read WOMAN, on the keyring with the single, grimy, key. Val shimmied back into her dark grey jeans, bouncing a little to get them to sit right. Then, she disappeared. The key clattered to the floor.

Well. That’s that, I guess. Val thought. It wasn’t painful at all, no sharp snap in any of her bones, just a white blip in her vision, and then she was back in the bathroom, a transparent version of herself. Damn, Val thought. She had been looking forward to her session with Martina, had planned to finally talk about Ben, his uselessness, and her complacency.

She thought about going back, asking Martina to believe her disappearance, just like she had believed all of the other truths in Val's life. Instead, she left the building, squeezing into the sweaty elevator with a large lawyer who worked in the office down the hall, and a woman who looked like she would have a shrill voice if she opened her mouth up to speak. Val peeled herself out and walked through the lobby, didn't stop walking until she had reached Ben's apartment, 40 blocks later. She checked her existence in the mirror and sat down with a glass of water. She waited. Ben walked in, assessed the room, and sighed. He unbuttoned his shirt, stretching as he texted someone with blatant disinterest. She relished that she could see him without being watched. He was clearly lean and strong, the cut of his collared shirt alone would key anyone into his physique. Even now, she was slightly tempted to slip her fingers down underneath the fabric. Val wondered what he was like as a child. She couldn't really imagine him as a bully. He was too snakelike to steal lollypops. She knew he played chess, and she could imagine that he saw his peers, even in elementary school, as pawns.

"I thought we talked about starting dinner before I got home," He said to her. Val jumped straight out of her chair.

"You can see me?"

"What, did you think you were invisible?"

"Yes, actually."

Ben looked at her, annoyed.

"Sorry." Val stood up and tried to catch herself in the reflection of a window. There was nothing. She reached for a pot to boil some water, and looked straight through her non-fingers, to the floor. Damn it, Val thought as she served the pasta, as Ben's eyes looked at her instead of through her.

She washed the dishes, soapy bubbles attached to the air around where her forearms would be.

"Let's go to bed," Ben commanded, and she placed the last wet dish in the drying rack, nodded.

They were lying next to each other and Ben's hand was on her stomach again. He was watching her, as he often did, like he was memorizing her, starting with her left ear and moving down. She used to think it was sweet, that he wanted to look at her so intently. Now, it seemed if he looked at her hard enough, he might be able to read her mind, or devour her. She watched his eyes droop and close. She watched his palm twitch and lie flat on her stomach, as if to hold her in place. It rose and fell with her breath, but without her visible body it looked like it was floating in midair. She moved his hand off of her. Ben stirred, but didn't grab her wrist or stop her. She sighed. Val had recently been of the opinion that fighting was just too much work, but being see-through was a different feeling than she thought it would be. She pulled out her clothes from drawers, the earrings she had gotten compliments about at work, and the utensils she had bought when they had moved in. She rolled up the rug. She stared at a painting on the wall, the one she had picked out herself, and unhooked it from its hanging. She zipped up all her things, and was surprised to see that she had barely had any impact on the apartment. Then, for the second time in 24 hours, Val vanished, having placed her key with a metallic click onto the marble countertop, holding the reflection-less mirror under her arm.