Paranoid

Just before the subway door opens at my stop, the woman standing in the middle of the doorway gives me a look, sullen and appraising, as if she's pretty sure if it came down to it, she could take me.

She and her boyfriend had been talking only a few stops back, something bitter and sardonic I couldn't quite catch, and for some reason, I'd gotten the impression they'd been talking about me. No reason, just this weird guilt feeling I always seem to carry around with me.

Not always, really, just, when it does come up, it feels like there's this piece of me that's always been wrong, forever, and I'll always be the nerdy kid that the other kids called names and made fun of, even as I exit the station, up the stairs and out into a beautiful Brooklyn spring afternoon, into a beautiful life.