“Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did you do a lot of acid in the sixties? Could be a flashback.” “I was two years old in 1960. I came too late for the party.” He leans down and pecks me on the head. I pull away out of habit. “And I’m not even going to ask how you know about acid flashbacks.” “What’s an acid flashback?” Izzy crows. “Nothing,” my dad and I say at the same time, and he smiles at me.”

“This can't be real," he said into my hair. "This has to be an acid flashback." I laughed, delighted to be in his arms. "I swear I'm not an acid flashback.”

“She was hurt, Artie. And I don’t think I could tell you how scared I was. It was like watching a flashback of you, dying. I couldn’t protect you. And I couldn’t watch that again.”

“And what did it say?” I ask, almost expecting to hear him tell me, “Soon.”“Check the bed.” His voice cracks saying the words.“Excuse me?”“That’s what it said.”“And what’s it supposed to mean?”“Call me crazy, but I think it might mean that I should check my bed.”“Not funny.”“Who’s laughing? I’m paranoid about going home now. I’m having major flashbacks to summer camp. You know, itching powder in the bedsheets, snakes under the pillow, getting your hand dipped into a bowl full of water while you sleep—”

“No way. I know acid, I've been splashed by acid several times before, and this, sir, is no acid.”

“Livia.” He seemed thrilled to let the word roll off his tongue. “Do you know that I’m invisible?”“No one has really seen me in years.” Blake looked at the sky. “Sometimes I wonder how they know I don’t have a home. I try to dress decently.” He waved a hand at his jeans and army jacket. “I think it just seeps out of me. I’m not the same as everyone else.” He shook his head, his eyes reflecting a weary despair. As he looked at Livia again, the despair was chased away with a grin. “But when you saw me for the first time, you actually saw me. You saw me, and then you smiled like I was just the same as everyone else on that platform.”