Platform smelled like diesel and wet concrete. Like endings. People shoved past. Suitcases on wheels. A baby crying. The world was loud. Opaque.
She stood with her parents. A small, neat suitcase at her feet. Navy coat. Hair pulled back. She looked older already. A stranger.
He stood by a pillar. Twenty feet away. A mile. Her father's eyes were on him. A physical pressure. A warning.
Their last kiss was twelve hours old. It felt like a bruise on his mouth. He could still taste it. Under the station stink.
She looked at him. Just once. A flick of her eyes. A message he couldn't read. Then she looked at the ground.
The train slid in. A silent, silver snake. Doors hissed open. A wave of warm, stale air rolled out. Smelled like old coffee and strangers.
Her father put a hand on her back. Guided her forward. She picked up her suitcase. Didn't look back.
He wanted to scream. To shove through the crowd. Grab her. Run. His feet were bricks. Frozen to the platform.
She stepped onto the train. Vanished into the bright interior. Her father followed. Then her mother.
The doors stayed open. Beckoning. An invitation to a different life. One he wasn't allowed to board.
He saw her then. Through the window. She found a seat. Facing backwards. She looked out. Their eyes met.
A second. Maybe two.
Her face was a blank page. Then it crumpled. Just for a split second. A fracture. He saw it. The girl from the roof. The one who laughed at bad cigarettes. The one whose finger fit perfectly in his palm.
Then she looked away. Out the other window. Away from him.
A whistle blew. Sharp. Final.
The doors hissed shut. A seal.
The train didn't move. A torture. He stared at her profile through the glass. She didn't turn back.
Then it jerked. A slow, groaning start. Metal on metal. It began to pull away.
His heart slammed against his ribs. A frantic, stupid animal. Run. Say something. Do something.
He didn't move.
The train picked up speed. Her window slid past. A blur of silver and light. Then she was gone.
The last car vanished into the tunnel mouth. A darkness swallowing a light.
The platform was suddenly quiet. Just him and the echo. The smell of diesel was overwhelming. He tasted it in the back of his throat. Mixed with the ghost of tobacco. Of mint.
Gone.
He stood there. Long after the crowd dispersed. Until a cleaner gave him a look. A guy in a uniform pushing a mop bucket. The water was gray.
He walked home. The streets were the same. But everything was thinner. Like a cheap photocopy. Colors washed out. Sounds muffled.
His apartment was empty. His mother was at a friend's. Hiding from the debt collectors. The eviction notice was still on the table. He picked it up. Read the legal words. They meant nothing.
He went to his room. Lay on his bed. Stared at the crack in the ceiling.
The distance wasn't just miles. It was a new reality. She was in it. He was in this one. This rotting, silent room.
The train kept moving in his head. The sound of it. The hiss. The grind. The final, sucking silence as it disappeared.
He was on the platform. He would always be on the platform. Watching that silver back. Watching her choose not to look.
The physical space became a wall. Then the wall became static. A low, white noise in his life. The signal of her got weaker every day. Fainter. Buried under new sounds. New smells. The static of survival.
But some nights, like tonight, lying in the dark, the static would clear. For one brutal second. He'd hear the hiss of the doors. Smell the diesel. See the exact way her hair fell against the window.
And he'd be right back there. Feet frozen. Heart screaming. Watching her leave him behind.