I could feel my nails digging into my palm, sweat on my brow as I trembled in the corner booth. Clenching my teeth, I ripped out another page, balling it up and tossing it into my bag.

"Wrong. All wrong." I muttered as my pen clattered to the floor, the sound too loud for such an insignificant object.

"Are you alright?" I looked up at a lady in a suit, trying my hardest to show a kind face.

"Perfectly fine." I grumbled, straightening my papers. Alright, maybe not kind. "Important meeting to get to?" I motioned to her ironed outfit while straining my ear at the loud snippets of conversation from around the cafe. 'You know, people rarely ever come to sit with the crazy lady behind the shop."

"Is that your name then?"

"Maybe." I shrugged, finally taking a moment to eat my sandwich. "Would explain why no one looks me in the eye."

She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat as I took another bite. It was normal to have people feeling awkward as they sat across me. They pitied me, nothing more. "Are you a student?" I frowned. "A writer?" I scoffed. "What's with all the papers then? I haven't seen anyone work on dead trees in a while."

"Dead trees." I smirked. "Creative use of words for a nobody."

"A nobody?"

"People in the street." I explained. "The normals. The ones who go unnoticed. You're one of them."

"And you... you're a nobody, then?" She put down her steaming cup of coffee next to my cold one. "Just like everyone else?"

"Not everyone." I shook my head. "The ones behind you? They aren't no one. They live right around the block. Everyone knows them. They come here everyday. The shop owner has their names behind the counter." I turned to the wooden plaques reading Anna and Matt.

"Huh." She looked at me like a game now. No longer a nuisance she had to pretend to care about. "What about the man sitting alone outside?" She looked out the window. "Hostile. Not very nice."

"You mean him?" She looked around in alarm as I pointed to the middle aged man outside. Casual wear and only an empty plate in front of him. "I met him in Malaysia when I was travelling, capturing life. Very fun fellow, but he never liked to talk much." I couldn't help smiling as she looked frustratedly between me and the stranger.

"I find that hard to believe."

"So don't." I wiped my fingers on a discarded napkin, absentmindedly folding it. "It's just a story."

"I don't think so." She watched me fold the napkin; the same way children used to do. "Tell me about the crazy lady behind the shop. What's her story?"
I scowled, turning back to the hastily scribbled words on my pad of paper. The picture next to it was of us. Of Emma and me before all this. This obsession with stories and empty pictures. There was nothing else to write about. Nothing else the picture wanted to say.

"I think," She took my pen from me and started writing in big, curly letters on a card she had on her. "The crazy lady behind the shop isn't crazy at all. She's stuck between somebodies and nobodies, trying to find a balance between frozen people and life." She took out a chocolate bar from inside her coat pocket. "But the people around her just don't see things the same way. So they react the way people do to strange things."

"What's your point?"

"Maybe the lady isn't strange." She set the chocolate bar and the card down on the table, smiling as she stood. "Maybe the people around her just need to be a bit stranger." She winked before her composure shrunk and she went out the door.

I looked at the card and the chocolate bar she left on my table.

Smile. You deserve to be happy.

"Maybe." I muttered, my lips tugging upwards. And I could almost hear her talking next to me.

"Not maybe. Yes. Without a doubt."

***

A/N

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