That’s when I noticed the guy smiling at me from across the café. I blinked and checked over my shoulder…but no, there wasn’t some hot girl behind me. He was smiling at me, which didn’t make sense. Guys don’t smile at me. Guys don’t notice me.

This one was about thirty, the same as me. But he leaned against the counter with an easy confidence I’d never have, a leather jacket open over a hoodie with the name of some band too cool for me to recognize. His smile widened as he saw me notice him: he was sort of good looking, if you went for the rough look. I felt my cheeks flare red. Why’s he smiling at me? Did I have a milk mustache, or—

The guy collected his coffee and then strolled past me and out of the café’s rear exit, turning to give me a friendly nod. When he was gone, I sat there, stunned. This never happens.

Deep in my chest, something flared into life. Cautious and flickering, ready to die at any second because better that it died than to have it snuffed out by someone else again. But it was there, fragile but hopeful. Maybe I’m not so weird. Maybe he really did smile at me because he likes me. I should have smiled back. Maybe it would have been the start of something. And my sleep-deprived brain started to fill up with daydreams: maybe the guy was a fellow nerd and techie. I imagined cuddling up and reading together, safe and warm….

Then I caught myself. What might have been didn’t matter. He was gone and I was only here for a day. I’d never see him agai—

The guy burst back in through the rear door. “Help! There’s a woman unconscious out here!”

For a second, I just gaped at him, caught in emotional whiplash. But my mom had drilled into my brother and I to help, if we could, and taught us basic first aid. I jumped up and ran over to him. “Where?”

He stepped aside to let me through the door. “There! Behind the dumpster!”

I raced out into the alley. The street was slick with ice: maybe the woman had slipped and hit her head. Or she could be homeless, and she’d passed out in the snow and was hypothermic…

I rounded the dumpster but there was no one there. Where is she?! I looked back towards the café but the guy hadn’t followed me outside: probably, he was calling an ambulance. I realized there was a second dumpster, further down the alley, and raced over to it as fast as I dared on the ice—

There was no one there, either. Cheese and crackers! Where was she? I looked up and down the alley, desperate. What if she dies because I can’t find her?