Tell Me Who You Are

It wasn't easy living a double life. Having two faces and only showing one. Spinning around the city by night and trudging across the bustle and hustle of the streets by day. Yet, it was the life I chose. I wanted to help people. I wanted to save the world.

It could be lonely sometimes, but that was the choice I'd made. Besides, there was only one person who'd ever caught my eye and it had been years since I saw her. Technically, we never officially met, I saved her from an explosion caused by a leaky pipe and she looked right at me. Her green eyes sparkled, and just like that, I was hooked.

It turns out she worked in the building next to mine. Each morning I'd wave at her, and she'd wink back like we shared a special secret that no one else knew. I flirted with the prospect of asking her out, but fear won each time. Drawing her into my world would only end in disaster. I had too many commitments, too many burdens on my shoulders.

Yet, for a while there, it consumed me. The idea of being happy, of spending my nights with someone and feeling like I was like everyone else. I dreamt of spinning her around the huge park in the city, laughing as the sun shone on us. I pictured holding her hand and feeling the weight of it bearing me down, like an anchor keeping me in place. Keeping me home.

Such was the intensity of my feelings that I began to avoid her. I took the back way into the office, I shoved down all thoughts of happiness and ever after. For some time, my saves became so audacious that I got an entire segment on the news. They called me a mysterious hero but walking amongst them, I felt nothing if not ordinary. For I was a shell amongst life. Existing but not assimilating. My work colleagues were strangers, my neighbours were ghosts.

The only person I'd ever felt a connection to was... her.

The reason for my long-running mental diatribe was sitting in my office. I sat behind the desk and she sat in front of it. From my appointment book, I knew her name was Callie Meadows, and I could see how impressive her writing resume was - not that I cared. Within a few seconds, my heart was singing, strumming on its guitar strings and sending my soul swaying to the rhythm of the best.

"Do you want to grab some lunch?" I asked her without thinking about the implications. "With me."

Callie raised an eyebrow and her hand clenched around the thick manuscript in front of her. "Do you make a habit of asking out every pretty lady that comes into your office?"

"N-no. No!" I took a sip of water to hide my embarrassment. "I just thought we could catch up is all."

I knew it was a mistake the second the word left my mouth. There had been some sort of miscommunication or breakdown of my brain to mouth filter.

"Catch up?" Callie shoulders tensed, leaving me wondering why I'd continued this appointment when I first saw her. It was never going to end well. "Mr Johnson, I don't know you. We've never met before."

What was I supposed to say? I grabbed you from a ten storey building and flew you down to safety and we shared a deep, intense look that I remember every day. She already thought I was being creepy, it was painted all over her face.

"I'm sorry, I must be mistaken. You just look a lot like someone I used to know."

It took a few seconds, but Callie's face relaxed. She slid over the manuscript and smiled. "Don't be sorry. What you can do instead is find me a book deal."

"Well, I have to read it first," I said, unable to hold in my smile. "Oh, and call me Ryan, please."

+

I passed on Callie's book, not because it wasn't good - it was - I just didn't trust myself to be objective. It felt like she could hand me eighty thousand words of incorrectly structured limericks and I'd love it all the same. So I passed it onto a colleague who assured me they would consider it. In a way, I was glad I'd seen her again. I didn't even take the rejection personally - I'd gotten ahead of myself. Started spinning fairy tales in my mind to cure my loneliness. I'd put her on a pedestal, not realising I was no better than someone who'd lock a princess away in a tower.

She didn't belong to me no matter how much her presence made my heartbeat quicken, or my soul thrum, riding high like a dragon in the middle of a firestorm. Sometimes I was so good at saving other people that I only ever failed myself. Once again, I did my best to forget her. To forget this silly notion about a happy life. Saving people was what I did best. It was who I was. And if I kept on getting lost in my head, I'd miss things, like the harrowing screams of a woman who appeared to be in great distress.

"Get off me, you creep!"

"Go bother someone else! Let go of me!"

I followed the voice and zipped across town, landing on the roof above a deserted street. A woman was wrestling with a man over a bright red purse. She kicked him in the groin just as I descended, following up with a can of pepper spray. The man's screams echoed in the night sky and I wasted no time in tying his hands behind his back when he stumbled and landed on the floor in a scattered heap.

"Are you okay, Miss?" I asked. "Do you need further assistance?"

I had to ask. In the beginning, when I was cocky and arrogant, I'd messed up. Being a hero wasn't about the save, it was about keeping people safe. It was no good swooping in and leaving people crying on the ground. The lesson had been painful but necessary.

The would-be mugger shot me a dark look but his eyes were red and puffy, and I dismissed him easily. I could hear the woman close behind, picking up her belongings from where they'd scattered in the streets.

"I'm fine," she said. "Nice of you to show up after I'd done all the work."

It was her.

It was Callie, and in my haste to see her again, I turned around. She was staring in my direction and when I faced her, she gasped.

"Ryan?"

I quickly shrank back into the shadows, but I didn't leave. I couldn't. I couldn't leave her.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I don't know any Ryan."

"Oh, please. I spent hours after that meeting trying to figure out why you were so sure we'd met before, and I remembered you. You saved me before, didn't you?"

"I did?"

"Yes, and we played wave tag for three months in the street outside our work buildings before I quit my job. I'd see you and wave. You'd see me and wave. We just never got around to talking to each other."

"Oh." I cleared my throat. "Why is that?"

It was one thing for someone to recognise him in costume, another for them to bulldoze past his disguise. In a way, though, hadn't he done this to himself?

"You tell me. You're the hero. Don't you have like, telepathy or something?"

I laughed at that. Rumours of my abilities always made for a good laugh over breakfast. I'd never confirmed or denied any, preferring to keep things mysterious. It was safer that way.

"I can assure you that I don't read minds, Ms Meadows."

Callie released a soft snort, her dark hair cascading onto her shoulders in the evening breeze.

"... That's good to know," she murmured and I could have sworn her cheeks were stained pink, almost like she was…flustered.

"What do we do now?" I stepped closer, unable to pull myself away.

"How about continuing this over that lunch you owe me?" Callie smiled. "There is a mugger ten feet away. Who knows what he might hear?"

+

I ended up taking Callie out for dinner instead. It was a week after our meeting in the street and I was brimming with nerves. Fear gripped my insides like a vice, twisting my guts into knots. Luckily, it was an Italian bistro that did some great salads. I didn't trust myself to eat anything else.

When Callie arrived, dressed in a vibrant and plum-coloured dress and a matching smile, some of my worries ebbed away. Warmth flooded my heart and if I didn't already know she was special, I knew now.

Everything and everyone else paled in comparison and from that moment on she became my foreground, with all the minutiae of restaurant fading into the background. A spotlight shone on her and like a moth, I was transfixed.

"Why did you let me get close enough to figure out who you are?" Callie asked after we'd ordered our meals and gotten to know each other briefly. I got the sense she was one of those people who liked to psychoanalyse. Delve under the surface and unravel each layer. Somehow, the thought didn't terrify me the way it usually did.

I hesitated, taking a sip of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and revelling in the punchy taste of lime on my tongue before I answered. "I didn't."

"Maybe you don't realise it, but you did. And I think I know why."

I furrowed my brow. "Why?"

"You're lonely," Callie stated. "No wife. No kids. Barely any friends and you spend your free time in a costume saving a bunch of ungrateful people. Strangers. You needed more. You needed a connection."

"How do you know that?"

She flashed me a wry grin, her eyes gleaming like she knew all my secrets. "I may have asked around and done some research."

It would be easy to fall into this conversation, and let her know everything. Confess to my fears and inadequacies, admit that I didn't have all the answers. Too easy. This was the life I'd chosen for myself. I had to learn to live with it.

"It doesn't matter what I need," I said, quickly adding, "and they're not ungrateful. Not all of them."

Being too quick to judge was every hero's flaw. The good guys, the bad guys, the in-between. Each save was a judgement call. Looking to people for some kind of recognition was a dark path I'd long strayed from.

"Of course it matters. And if you can save lives and help the least I can do is be there for you. As a friend, obviously."

"Callie, it's okay. I'm fine."

"Just for once.. think about yourself. What do you want? Above everything."

"For someone to see me for who I am." I paused and considered my answer. "I suppose I want what everyone else has. A life. Happiness. To feel like I'm not alone. I want someone to see me. Not the guy who works for a publishing company or the guy who... saves people. The person underneath that. Me."

There was a long pause and I grew uncomfortable. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to unload on you like that."

Callie didn't respond, and I was drawn to the way her hand snaked across the table and landed on mine. Slowly, I flipped my hand and laced our fingers.

"Tell me," she said, breaking the thick blanket of silence that had been threatening to settle over us. "Tell me who you are."

My heart skipped a violent beat and I knew I would never be the same again.