Empty Trains (A Guest Post By Rebekah W.)

I pushed through the train station, aimlessly; it must have appeared to the people around me, yet my eyes searched through the sea of faces.  Seeking.  In vain.  For the face that had haunted me for almost a year.

I glanced at my watch. 5:30 P.M. Five-thirty, everyday, every week, for the past year. For him. My mind went over the letter he sent me. Again. Every word of it I subconsciously memorized. Why wasn’t he here? The agony seared through my mind. Over and over. My eyes wandered the length of the train station. People rushed to and fro, their voices, creating the symphony of the city. Families embraced their loved ones coming back for the holidays. I felt cold watching them. There was no one to warm me with their loving embrace. His loving embrace. Minutes slipped through my cold fingers and fell to the unforgiving ground. The crowds thinned. If I don’t find him today, I’ll give up. This time I would, I swore to myself.

Then I saw it; the back of a head with dark curly hair, identical to his. Wind-blown, a little messy, yet impossibly gorgeous. Then the head turned. My breath, stuck in my throat, came out almost immediately. It wasn’t him. No tan skin. No beautiful green eyes that gleamed with humor, yet still retained a wistful quality. No tall strong yet lean body that had swore to protect my life. No unconscious smile that played tirelessly at his lips. Instead a gangly teenager with pimples covering his pallid face. His eyes were a dull brown and held no sparkle of love when they looked at me. I turned away, disgusted with myself and full of crushed hope. Yet a small, annoyingly hopeful voice in my head whispered in a bell-like voice, What about tomorrow? Maybe it will be him tomorrow.

I couldn’t ignore it as much as I wanted to. What if he comes tomorrow and I’m not there? No, I won’t come! I won’t! The internal battle raged madly inside me. I walked away, determined. But I knew, deep inside, I would be back tomorrow, at five-thirty. And the day after that, and after that.

Maybe it was just love.

By: Rebekah W.