Beyond the window a few people mill about on the platform, some glued to their phones, some in small groups, huddled against the chill of the wind. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of black, and my stubbornly optimistic heart leaps, but when I turn to look, all I can see is a young goth couple hugging goodbye.
A man sits down in the seat opposite mine, and as our eyes meet, he smiles. It’s fleeting– a shy, polite flash of a smile before he looks away again– but it’s long enough for me to notice how handsome he is. It’s the kind of handsome that would have made my heart leap in my chest once upon a time, but my heart’s too far away now, stuck in a tiny cottage annexe with a man whothinks he can’t give me what I need, or can’t give me what hethinksI need, or whatever.
I look back out of the window and sigh so deeply that I almost pull something.
This is what Bram wants me to do. He wants me to meet a normal, human man in a normal, human way and live a normal, human life– marriage, babies, all of it. And if I’m honest with myself, Ididwant that when we met. But that was mainly because it had never occurred to me to want anything else.
And now? Now I don’t know what I want. Beyond him, anyway. He’s the one thing I’m sure about.
Wassure about.
The train jerks into motion, and I watch the countryside speed past outside the window, shades of green and orange and red which blur together, shapes distorted by the pattern of raindrops on glass. With every minute that passes I’m further away– further from the place where I found something I’ve spent my whole life looking for.
My entire life, I’ve felt out of context. A jigsaw piece the right colour but which just doesn’t fit into any of the spaces. And I should have felt more like that this weekend, by rights. I mean, Idefinitelydidn’t fit. But somehow, after the initial double-jump-scare, almost-death-fall business, I slotted right in.
I finally felt as if I was in the right place.
I should have known not to trust it.
And now I’m speeding back to my old life– back to a job I tolerate with a boss who, I’ve recently discovered, is a massive arsehole. The only thing I’ve missed about my life in Leeds is Mina, and it’s not lost on me that Mina is everything I loved about Whitby. She’s the spirit of the place.
We’ve been texting a little– after I wore her out that first night, I’ve been careful to let her rest– but I haven’t properly spoken to my best friend in days. I was excited to tell her allabout me and Bram, but now, when I do, it’ll all be in the past tense. The idea of it makes fresh tears burn at my eyes, but I try my hardest not to let any fall. I’m not normally a public crier. I’m much too sunshine and roses.
But that’s when I haven’t had my heart obliterated. All bets are off now.
The train lurches as it slows for the next station, a small movement which, for some reason, makes my phone slide off the leg I was resting it on and sends it skittering across the floor of the carriage. I track it with my eyes, willing my weary body to get up and grab it, when all of a sudden I see a hand reach for it.
It’s a nice hand, by anyone’s standards: solid and masculine with neatly trimmed nails and a natural-looking tan. It’s a very human hand– the kind of hand that might belong to the kind of man I’m supposed to be seeking.
‘Here,’ a voice says, and I look up to see that it’s the handsome stranger from the opposite seat. He’s holding out my phone, a faint smile on his face. ‘Your phone. It was closer to me than you, so I just…’
He trails off, motioning between me and the phone with his free hand. He’s a little awkward, a little flustered. I wonder if it might be because I look like I’m on the precipice of a nervous breakdown, but then I see a faint flush in his cheeks and the beginning of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Is he flirting with me? I don’t know how I feel about that.
Our fingers brush lightly as I take the phone from him, and I’m struck by how warm they are. It shouldn’t surprise me– warm is the default human temperature, of course– but it does. I’ve become so used to cool hands against mine that it feels a little wrong. That doesn’t bode well for my normal, human future.
‘Thank you,’ I reply as I take it from him, forcing as bright a smile as I can, and then I don’t know what to say after that. I settle for, ‘Thanks a lot.’
His smile grows a little more before he mumbles a response I don’t hear and settles back into his seat. He picks up his book from the seat next to him and, with a final quick dart of his eyes in my direction, begins to read.
A reader. A handsome, polite, slightly shy reader who isn’t wearing a wedding ring and seems to be interested in me. I have to laugh. It’s like the universe is testing me, showing me what post-Bram life could look like for me. And a small, petulant part of me thinks: this is what he wanted. He told me to move on, to find a human, and here is a perfectly nice human, right in front of me.
And it’s that small, petulant part of me that takes the wheel when I look back up at the stranger, take a deep breath, and start to speak.
‘Hi. My name’s Lucy.’
Chapter Thirty
BRAM
Well, that went well.
And by ‘well’, I obviously mean it was a fucking disaster.
I said I was going to give Lucy space to get her things together and leave, and in my defence, I did. Right up until that last-minute panic when I half sprinted up to the station to stop her getting on the train.
I got as far as the platform before I spotted her through the window of the carriage, gave myself a mental slap, and then hightailed it out of there before she could see me. Now I’m sitting outside on a low wall, trying to get myself together.