Trains

They said their farewells in a train station.

Her ticket flew out of the machine and he said, "Sweetheart, we should say goodbye here."

"No!" she barely audibly choked out.

The tears immediately began their merciless flow, and she clamored upwards for his mouth, desperately. She was a soggy, pathetic child, but he kissed her. He kissed her and then made some superfluous comment about the bags. Maybe out of a fear of sadness and the need to diffuse. Maybe out of the desire for a cigarette and a sandwich and the saga of her to be over.

They walked a little further to the gate of her platform. She silently shuddered with sobs and he repeated over and over again, "Sweetheart, sweetheart." "I am certain that we will meet again. Probably sooner than you think." Lies to assuage his guilt.

She couldn't say anything. All her misery was caught in her throat. Along with the scream of, "I love you! Why do I have to leave? Why have you already left me? Why does life always hurl on and on and on and on? Without you. Without England."

One last fumble for his torso and then she silently and determinedly turned for the gate. She went through and then turned her face, screwed up in hideous agony, back towards him. He blew a kiss and called out, "You are platform 12, remember?" What a silly, stupid child she must have looked til the last. Clueless and wandering is how he saw her. Incapable of crossing streets ("How will you do this without me?") and navigating the world.

"I know!" she nearly spat, nearly laughed.

He laughed, but his eyes looked sad. She rounded the bend and came back in view of the gate. She half expected, in one last sliver of hope, for him to still be waiting there, lingering over her departure. Her heart saw the tall figure and mournful eyes. The gray t-shirt stained with her tears. The straw fedora set at the rakish angle atop his head. The rucksack filled with liters of wine and the rolling papers in his beautiful hands. But, no, he had vanished out of sight. With a quickness that was almost cruel. If he had left her, she would still be standing there watching for him. But he was gone gone gone. And she knew she was gone gone gone and over for him.

She took her seat on the train and continued to weep with bitter pain, resentment, love, and hate. The thread by which she was bound to him stretched tighter and threatened to snap in two as the train pulled out of the station.

Lighthouse

Anne slept with his shirt between her cheek and the pillow. She was afraid she would sap it dry of his smell before they next met... that it would wear away... and she would have nothing left of him but soft, gray cotton.

On his shoulders were tawny freckles that matched the color of his eyes. She pressed her nose against his flecked skin and looked up at his face.

They stayed up all night talking. She folded her arms and rested her cheek on the island in his kitchen and he complained, "Now I will only think of your face when I look at this counter. The kitchen will be incomplete without it."

The first time he kissed her was on a climbing escalator.

She had trouble catching her breath.

The weight of their distance was unbearable in her chest. Her heart ached and gaped cavernous. She closed her eyes and trembled to remember his warmth. It was not hard to recall, and its absence clawed at her until she thought she could not stand under such duress.

She would bite his nose and kiss his eyes and touch his exceptional cheeks with the tips of her fingers.

She would stay awake and caress him into comfortable sleep. Absorb, like Mrs. Ramsay, his pains and his weak knees, making him whole again.

He reformed Anne to her original best self. Slowly, as she was enveloped in his love, the trappings of latest rebellion dropped like scales from her body. He remembered her back to life. And to a new life that dazzled and shimmered with nuance and hope. It stretched out long before her in the least laborious of ways, twisting and spinning into joyous action. His light reflected brilliantly in her undulating waves until they were almost painful to gaze upon.

"Come kiss me..." he sighed.

And she was coming.