The winner of the September Flash Fiction contest is @brucerelgin with his story THE MOMENT.
If you like Bruce's story, show your support by showering him with your comments both here and on his profile. While you're there, check out his two exceptional stories, SCHISM and VOODOOTOWN. You won't regret it!
THE MOMENT
Clara doesn't know why she follows the boy into his room. It might be the warm smell of the buttered toast in his hands. When he cleaned up the breakfast area in the lobby there had been a small pile of bread, some white, some wheat, that had been left out. It was too stale for guests, so the boy had claimed it. After toasting it and buttering it back to life he had carried it off.
He sits on the edge of his bed, toast in lap. For weeks she had hoped there was something different about this boy. She had let herself believe that when he arrived she wouldn't be alone. As he stares at the painting behind her, she knows she still is.
He looks around the room, picks up a piece of toast, puts it back down. Slowly he smiles, looks up at the air beside Clara and moves his lips. She cocks her head at him, but still doesn't catch a sound. He's talking, but not talking, to someone who isn't there. He turns his head further, almost to the window, then speaks. "Since you're not here, Dad, I guess Marcus and I can actually talk out loud." He takes a big bite of toast. "How are things? Is Dad still crazy?"
Clara looks at the empty space and realizes that the boy isn't seeing something that she can't. He's pretending.
"Yeah, my birthday's almost here. Eighteen." He is pretending to see someone that isn't there and Clara knows that he doesn't see her. He never will. There's no point in following him anymore. It's time to give up.
He nods at whoever his is imagining and points with his toast. But he points at her, at Clara. "I see you brought a friend. Who is she?" the boy asks.
Clara moves in closer and looks at his eyes. They move to the empty, pretend spot and the boy nods, then he looks back and the boy's gaze moves through her a moment before it locks on her. He stares and the plate of toast drops from his fingers.
The boy she had hoped was different, the boy she had feared would never notice her, that boy was looking right at her. "What?"
You can see me.