Hallway Crush

The station was jam packed with so many people it looked like there wasn’t even an end to the madness. It was filled with the sounds of people's footsteps, the wheels of suitcases, and worst of all, one extremely loud crying child. I felt for this kid's parents, whoever they were. Being stuck on a train with that would not be fun. Rushing through the crowds I headed towards platform 3 to ride the train back to birmingham. When we’d moved from Toronto when I was a kid I had been very disappointed with the change. But it made us money, so who am I to complain?

It took about 5 minutes just to find the platform and right as I got there people were piling on and off already, so I rushed to join the crowd and enter through the cramped doors into an even more cramped space. Unfortunately for me there weren’t any free seats so I was stuck hovering until more people had cleared off. To pass the time, I got my phone and headphones out of my bag and turned on some music to drown out the immense amount of noise. I didn’t need to listen out for my stop anyway since it was the last one.

Staring out at the raindrops trickling down the windows of the train, my mind drifted back to the events of today. Had I really only signed that paper because I was distracted by the very handsome man who was talking to me about it? Yes, and in all honesty, I was barely listening to what he was saying at all. Regardless, just from one conversation there were already so many questions I’d liked to have asked him. Why did he look so tired? He looked like he hadn’t seen more than a couple hours of sleep in days, maybe even weeks. But he was damn good at pretending he wasn’t. God, this man was hard to read. He managed to strip away my confidence without lifting a finger. He was just too… complicated.

I knew where this was leading. The complicated feelings, the strange thoughts, all based around a stranger I was only supposed to meet with once for the rest of my life. Another one of my short-lived romantic fantasies. Every time I bought into it and pursued them, and every time those feelings faded so quickly it was a miracle they were even there in the first place. But this really did feel so real, so much more than all the other times. I wanted to arrange another meeting like this one, to find a reason for him to be interested in me and for letting me stay over again, to let us get closer and learn about each other. But how? What excuse could I make when everything in that paperwork was flawless? I couldn’t trick my parents like that. They were too smart. Unless I just… asked him out? Not on a date, but just a sort of casual hang out, somewhere nice and comfortable and… I was getting completely ahead of myself, and my spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the train coming to an abrupt stop at its first destination.

Finally, I arrived home and slotted the key into my painted-white door, opening it and walking inside. “I’m home!” I yelled out in case either of my parents were home, but got no response. I sometimes thought about how I still lived with my parents at my age, not having anyone else to live with and not being able to stand being in an empty house. Living alone would just feel lonely now. And anyway, we had a big enough house that I didn’t think I particularly needed to move into a different one.

Closing the door behind me, I headed into our living room, sitting on the couch and turning on the TV to the news. The reporter spoke briefly about a pair of doctors being arrested for committing medical malpractice, but seeing even the blurred images of what they’d done made it look like it was pure murder. Feeling my stomach churn I immediately switched the tv right back off again and tried to find something else to occupy myself with, but our entire living room was spotless. All of our pure-white furniture had recently been dusted, the faux wooden floors cleaned, and even our various plants had been watered. I wondered if dad had done this earlier before he wandered off to, most likely, drink with some friends, or if mom had sorted it herself for once. Then I remembered my sister was visiting this month and realised that she had absolutely done it out of frustration at my parents neglectfulness.

Eventually, I gave up on finding something to do in our living room and headed off to my office to sort out some papers that had been dumped on me by various people at work. I sat myself down on my particularly comfy chair and spun it around to face my desk, looking at the pile that’d been given to me by various people across the week. Wow. Fuck. A lot to do tonight. I focused down on the pile of papers in front of me. I really wanted to go do something less boring, but I’d let this get too bad already. Every time I’d sit down to work on it I’d get distracted, be it by my phone, friends calling me, or some other much more interesting thing. Couldn’t let it accumulate much longer though, or I'd be getting complaints.

So, after a couple extraordinarily boring hours, I finally, finally, finished the majority of the papers, breathing a sigh of relief as I kicked my chair away from the desk and leant back. Staring at the ceiling I contemplated my newly found freedom, which had been striped from me for far too long, but I was interrupted by the door opening abruptly.

“Hey, dickhead, got ya a coffee.” A soft, yet very grating voice spoke. It just so happened to be the voice of my lovely sister, Anya. Mind you, despite her habit of calling me names, she really is lovely. She’s got that sort of charm that hooks you in the moment you talk to her, something I really envy. She has this long, blonde hair, tied into a braid, and she never wears anything besides T-shirts outside of her own work.

“Thanks, dear sister of mine.” I replied sarcastically, a smile forming on my face. She has a knack for that, too.

“Almost thought I wasn’t gonna see you before I go back home,” She handed me the coffee, then perched on our soft, snow-white armchair and crossed her legs. “How’d that meeting go?”

Huh, guess I'd nearly forgotten already. The meeting.

“Yeah, it went well. Got a deal, and as soon as it's done I’ll be able to sort out all the selling and advertising stuff…” I paused as I considered telling her about Samuel, but I figured it’d seem weird if I went off about that, so I didn’t. If Anya noticed this, she didn’t say anything, just sighing and speaking sarcastically.

“Wow, very interesting!” She snorted at her own dumb joke and I rolled my eyes.

“Like your work is more interesting!” I retorted, smirking at her. She feigned a dramatic gasp and looked at me like I’d stabbed a puppy or something.

“Oh, you dare insult the beauty of old, musty bones?! I’ll have to disown you at this point.” She let out a chuckle and I joined her.

I missed you, I wanted to say. But I felt like that’d sound a bit pathetic. It wasn’t like we didn’t talk often, we talked over the phone all the time. It wasn’t the same as being together in person, though. But she lived all the way back in Toronto, doing a job she loved. History was something she’d loved since she was a kid. I didn’t want to make her feel bad about staying away from Birmingham, of all places. It wasn’t a particularly nice place. So I just kept my mouth shut, not wanting to ruin this nice moment of silence between us.

“So… what's the person you met up with like, then?”

It took everything to not spit out the sip of my coffee I’d just taken. Why was she asking…?

“It’s just- You met up in a pub. You and pubs usually end in hook-” Anya said as if reading my mind. I coughed violently to shut her up before she could continue, and she just laughed at me. I scowled back, which just made her smirk at me.

“Well- you’re not wrong, but- it was for work!” I exasperatedly said back, swivelling my chair around so I wasn’t facing her anymore. She just sighed at me and stood up, walking up to my desk and looking at all the papers, picking one up and inspecting it. Her expression made it pretty clear that she felt sorry for me. That was a bit of a relief, to be honest.

“Alright, alright, can’t blame me, though.” Anya flashed me a smirk before heading out of the room. She turned back to me before she left and said, “Oh, yeah, mom and dad are sorting some shit with a client. Probably won't see them tonight.” And then she stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

I breathed a sigh of both relief and disappointment at her leaving. On the one hand, I wouldn’t get any more questions about Samuel. On the other, sitting in this musty room on my own was boring. No doubt she was off to go talk to her husband over the phone, though, so I wasn’t going to bother her any longer. Having finally finished my paperwork, at the grand old hour of 11pm, I decided it was probably time to eat something and go to bed, so I did just that. Grabbing something quick from my fridge, I got ready for bed. Then I drifted peacefully off to sleep, an odd warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest.