Across The Platforms

Part ii

You sit there and watch, pretending that you’re not watching. She knows you can see her. She smiles at you. You look down. You can’t believe she’s being so open. You’re hardly breathing. You look around nervously, watching for any of them; for any need to go to her. To protect her. From them. They can hit you. You don’t care about that. Just as long as they don’t hurt her, because that would hurt you more. You can’t see anything, so you look down again. Leaf through your paper like it’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen.

Of course you’re not actually reading any of it. You’re thinking of her. Imagining her silky soft skin touching yours. Kissing her after a night out. Openly being in a relationship, not having to skulk in corners. Not having to pretend that you don’t even know the one person who is your soul mate. You imagine a time when you can walk her along the beach on a summer evening.

Suddenly, you feel really angry. They had no right to do this to you. They didn’t care about her happiness. When she got on the train yesterday, you saw her look back at you, and feel the same wrench as she left you, desolate, in a cloud of dust. You saw the sadness in her. They did that. They didn’t love her. They could never love her like you do.

In a flurry of windblown newspaper, you get up and waltz over to her. She looks up at you part scared, part happy. “I’ve been wishing you’d come over” she says, and you can tell by her voice that she means it.