He kept looking over his shoulder to see the blank slate of the platform behind him, abruptly ended by the red bricks of the station. It seemed to him, a still life, its coat-clad denizens silently slipping between the flakes of white descending from the pale gray sky. His head turned around to the brown train car that took up all of the vision to his front. He turned his head again, noticing the positions of the hands on a clock that stared down on the station from its own pole. He checked his watch just to be sure, and watched as his breath made a haze in front of him.
It had only been two minutes. He was only two minutes into this twilight between where his journey ended and the next began. Home, however, seemed like a faraway land now. He’d refused to come here, and whenever he even passed the place, he tended to close his eyes. The image he saw when he looked over his shoulder, the one with all the people in fluffy black coats that would be stained into his memory for no reason, was one he’d feared since he’d put it to his back two months ago. His heart panicked as his dream that at the last minute, something might come and save him or wake him up came crashing down inside his mind.
His legs tingled as his brain whispered “run” to them. It was not electricity that flowed through them now, but ice, from the inside, not out. He shook his head and steadied his quivering lip, assuring himself that there was nothing more he could have done. Everything was perfect. Something in the back of his mind wondered, however, how that could be, when here he was unable to get on a train that was right in front of him. The seconds went by slower and slower.
They’d watched the leaves fall off of the trees and turn into small white flecks sailing to the ground. He wanted nothing more than to watch those trees turn green again, in that exact same spot, yet another thing he’d fallen in love with. Home did not have a spot like that. Home was thousands of spots away, all of which would pass in a big blur, even the ones he loved. The spots were not what he loved most. He would never have found them and taken them in if not for her. Seeing her face for the first time with all its dimensions and features intact was the moment his life became one long dream he got to wake up to every day.
He’d had two months to prove himself. He’d had two months to release everything that had built up inside of him and express everything that he never thought he’d be able to put in their proper place. Now that the time was up, he was wondering if he had done it. Something had seemed to hold him back the whole time from embracing her with all his might and telling her that there would be no train home and that he was going to stay forever. That, he believed, was the only thing he could have done to fulfill himself and be completely honest.
Yet here he was, in complete silence for the first time since the trees had leaves. Not a sound would permeate his ears for the next few hours, or maybe longer. Perhaps the next thing he’d let himself hear was the sound of her voice. This was not a thought he could entertain long however. When was “next time?” There was no answer, and maybe that was something he’d done wrong. Was this always how it was going to be, a back and forth of trains and travel with interspersed bouts of uncertainty? No matter the case, home would always be far away for someone.
All he wanted was for her to tell him, just one more time, that next time would be soon. He wanted her to tell him he’d done all he could and that she loved him more than ever. He knew that she had done all she could already. It was up to him now, but it was a weight he did not want to carry again. It was the weight of uncertainty that she needed to dissipate by telling him the hardest step had already been taken.
No, the hardest step was right now, the one right in front of him. He looked down at the first black stair that led up into the train. This was the first step he’d take that would take him so far away from her for an indefinite period of time. This might be the first of many he’d take identical to this one. How many would he have to take before everything was as it should be, for better or worse? At least, he thought, there’d be more than one.
Yes, the important thing is that this was not the last step. As long as there would be one more, no matter when, there would always be something to which he could look forward. He breathed into the air in front of him, having found the one thought he needed to comfort himself just enough for him to raise his foot. This step had to be taken so that it could be taken again. Without it, this was the end. Determined not to make it so, he took the step, his hand reaching for the rail. Once elevated, he looked out over the station again, his frown evening out on his face. All of the people were still invisible to him, and still nothing made a sound.
He found a seat next to the window and allowed himself to sink into it. He did not hear the train whistle, and barely noticed that the image of the station he’d just seen without the glass was starting to move. The only thing he saw was her face, a smile put on it just for him, attached to her head and body, with one arm moving in a motion that told him farewell. In a flash, he put his hand up and mirrored her on the inside. The smile on his face was just for her, and no one else. The smile she had given him was one, in this instance, that he would never tire of seeing.
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