Third Life - Noelle Adams
One
SOME PEOPLE ARE INVISIBLE. If you’re one of them, you’ll know what I mean.
They aren’t the people holding court at a party. They aren’t the ones who have eyes follow them whenever they enter the room. They aren’t the ones who get dates and invitations and requests for participation—unless there’s work to be done that no one else wants to do.
No one dislikes them. No one avoids them. No one bears any sort of ill will toward those people. It’s just that no one notices them at all.
They’re invisible.
My name is Gillian Meadowbrook, and I’m one of them.
As far as I can tell, there’s no reason for my invisibility. I’m pretty enough and nice enough and definitely smart enough, and I’ve stumbled into a surprisingly successful career. When I’m working, I’m completely focused on my job, so it doesn’t matter if I fade into the background. And when I’m with my few close friends, I know they see me for real.
But with everyone else, in any sort of social situation, I might as well be invisible.
This is particularly true with men.
It’s not that I don’t try to get attention. If there’s a man I like, I’ll attempt to smile and flirt and claim his interest the way I see other women do. It just never works for me. Sometimes I suspect it’s something in my biology. Maybe I’m lacking pheromones, intangible chemical signals that proclaim I’m female and sexually available.
For whatever reason, at thirty-two and with only one exception, I’ve never gotten any sort of male attention beyond some awkward kisses with guys I don’t much care about.
I’ve never had sex. Not even once.
I had one amazing first date when I was twenty-six. He was just out of law school, and he was cute and funny and smart enough to challenge me. Mutual friends set us up on a date. He saw me. I know he saw me, and I can still remember the thrill of it. The miraculous certainty of his regard.
If I’d had even one more date with Matt, I know I would have had sex with him. It would have finally happened for me. But the day after that dream date—not even twenty-four hours later—he was killed in a car accident on his way home from work.
Just one of those things.
Maybe that was it for me. Maybe that was my one chance. Six years ago with a man who tragically slipped out of my grasp before I even had him.
There’s been no one since. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m trapped by that one near miss and a lifetime of being invisible. For whatever reason, I’m still a virgin on a blustery March morning in Boston.
That’s going to change soon.
My mom died four months ago after years of declining with MS, and that was the turning point for me. I’m tired of waiting around for something to happen. For someone else to see me. I made a decision the day after my mother’s funeral, and it’s taken me this long to bring it to fruition.
But it’s happening now. I’m going to make it happen.
All this is to explain why I’m on my way to the airport on a Thursday morning with a bikini wax and a suitcase full of pretty underwear.
I have a plan. I’m going on a vacation, and by the time I come back, I’ll no longer be a virgin.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Gillian?” Ashley Doyle asks from the driver’s seat of her car. She’s one of my best friends, and she volunteered to take me to the airport.
She’s the only one I’ve told about my plans.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m ready. I’m going to make this happen.”
Ashley is pretty in the same way I am. Wholesome. Nothing particularly stunning or sexy. She’s a redhead while I’m blond, but we have similar girl-next-door looks. We went to college together and stayed friends afterward. I used to take comfort in the way she was like me—that I wasn’t the only one who never got noticed—but then a few years ago, she married a hot, brilliant multimillionaire. She’s still crazy in love with him, and it’s obvious to everyone that he firmly believes she’s the best thing to ever happen in the universe.
I’m happy for her. Really happy. But it’s hard not to feel kind of heavy about how she isn’t invisible like me after all. She managed to find a dream guy.
Evidently everyone can but me.
But I’m not feeling sorry for myself. There’s something