The radiator woke me with its hot hiss. Alone this weekend, Cade away in Philadelphia at his college homecoming weekend, fall seems to have settled down over New York City. The hem of its yellow-orange-red dress lay crumpled on the ground.

At first, I nearly had to chant to motivate my solitude: "I can be alone. I can be alone." Friday night was dark and cold. It emptied the streets and amplified every impudent drop from my showerhead. Even the subway seemed to have realized it was underground for another reason and gone into hibernation.

I cleared the trunk at the foot of my bed of all the old, barely used school supplies I bought for my job last year. I found my winter clothes and moved them into the trunk. I remembered nights like this when I didn't really know much here. I read and went to sleep.

The radiator woke me with its hot hiss. I dressed and washed dishes. I imagined lusty snakes wrapping themselves around the pipes that heat the building. Then to the library I walked, the strap of my bag straining under the weight of five abandoned library books. Books that I would regret having spent time on, had I read them. Words on paper seldom make me feel this way, so Stephanie Klein must have a gift.

A book waited for me with a paper wrapped around its spine. Places I Never Meant To Be.

I never meant to be so surprised when a neighbor met me face to face when I left the apartment. "Hi! How are you?" he asked. I've never seen the man, nor do I consider unwarranted friendliness natural at this point in my life. "Umm...good." I walked away, feeling stupid and chilly as the hard wood floors when I swung my feet out of the covers hours before.

It happened again when another man on the subway followed me out the door at our stop. "It looks like you had fun shopping today," he smiled. I huh'ed him, because I usually don't listen to others unless I know they're going to say something. Sometimes not even then.

"It looks like you had fun shopping today," he smiled. "Ummm...yes." I looked away from him, because I no longer know how to have a conversation with a stranger without thinking, "Why is this person talking to me? What does this person want from me? How can I end this encounter?"

The man must have looked at the gold ballet flats on my feet. "Those are some nice shoes," he said. "Thanks," I replied like I was reading a foreign word in an otherwise English text. I achieved flatness and a question at the same time.

I took the stairs up to the surface two at a time to get away from the man. I suspect he wanted to get my phone number or something. He could be one of those freaks, though. Just making conversation to be nice. Too weird.

Back at my building, I saw Large Neighbor, the gigantic black man who sits on the stoop with his bodega fruit drink and a black plastic bag. I'm not sure he even lives in the building and we've never spoken, but he looks out at the traffic on Central Park West with such wistfulness that I think there are a million sad stories he recalls. He never helps me with my bags of groceries and just slightly scoots over when I'm carrying a bag of laundry up the steps.

I carry my bags; we barely look at each other. We ignore each other in recognition.

I'm happy to get home. I can be alone. I can be alone.