Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #19 October 2015 | Page 46

Polly. Despite all her goth wear and raccoon make-up,
she draws a tiny heart above the y in her name. Maybe
she thinks it’s ironic. I don’t know. I don’t know her.
All I know is that she—alone among these hundreds or
thousands of people who have come and gone through
this school since I was born—can see me.

The Heart above Her
Name

Maybe she could hear me, if I screamed loud
enough.
I knock her book off her desk, and it hits with
a loud thump in the quiet of the classroom. Some of
her classmates titter nervously. She picks it up without
comment and opens it again to a page about exponents. Her math teacher asks if everything is okay,
but the disapproving tone suggests he thinks she has
dropped the book on purpose. Polly murmurs an
apology. Her dark hair swings down in a fringe as she
goes back to work, obscuring her face.

Part 1
By M.L John
can’t.

I know she can see me, but she pretends she

I went to high school. I remember walking
down the crowded hallways while other kids darted
glances at me with their peripheral vision but kept
their faces trained forward, chins dipped toward locker
combinations or book bags, their eyelashes dark at the
edges where they looked at me instead of what they
were doing. She does not hide her laughter behind her
hands when I walk past, but there is something familiar about the way she ignores me.
I have been alone for a very long time.
I follow her. She is a small person, young as I
was once upon a time. Her shoulders hunch in under the heavy weight of her pack. She wears black;
her hair is dyed black despite her pale eyes and pale
eyebrows. And she can see me. In math class, I
stand beside her desk and reach out to touch her hand,
knowing she will shiver. She jerks away before we
connect. She makes the movement into the grab of
her pencil, but the avoidance is too sharp, too fearful.
She looks at me between her eyelashes and quickly
away, swallowing.
She writes her name on her notebook paper.

“This isn’t over, Polly,” I whisper. Her hand
contracts around her pencil, knuckles going white. I
realize I don’t have to scream at all. Not only is her
vision acute, but her hearing is, as well.
I am tired, and I fall back into my dreams.
I used to know a boy. Daniel, his name was,
and he was so beautiful I ached when I looked at him.
He had a nose as noble as the prow of a ship, cheekbones sharp enough to make me bleed, blue eyes, and
artfully tousled hair. I wanted that boy so badly I could
taste him on my mouth as I fell asleep at night. He had
a girlfriend named Jenna. I didn’t care about her; she
stood in his shadow, uninteresting. I waited until she
was sick one day before I approached him.
“Hey,” I said, ever-clever.
He smiled, teeth bright-white and brilliant as
starlight. He turned his entire body to face me, focusing on me, homing in.
“Hey,” Daniel replied. He
stretched out his y so the word became the sound of a person intrigued:
heyyyyy. That’s how I knew I had him.

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