Train Window As it appeared in Twitter’s #7DayTale
His fingers splay against the glass. The scene beyond is a moving picture of trees and grass.
‘That much?’ Her eyes had widened.
‘Yes.’ He squirmed. It wasn’t only because the number was way beyond the wildest imaginations of a small town boy. Like himself.
‘You have to accept then.’ She drew in her lips, tight-pressed against each other.
‘It’s surreal, I know.’
She shook her head, mouth clenched to deny the passage of words.
He reached out a hand and touched her arm. She flinched the arm away, turned her back. Her heavy gasp might be a prelude to tears.
‘I’ll come back,’ he said. ‘As soon as I can.’
She drew in a long, loud breath, faced him, shoulders pushed back. Her eyes glinted but the tears didn’t spill.
‘Why? Why would you come back?’
‘For you.’
When her smile came, it was indulgent, like a mother suffering a toddler’s explosion of ‘I hate you’ temper.
‘For you.’
The words tremble in his mind as he stares from the train window into the orchard. It’s where they played as children, where she allowed him their first kiss, where they swore they were eternal soulmates.
His fingers splay against the glass.
See, here I am, reaching out to you, wanting you.
See, here I am, saying goodbye.