I sigh and stare at my feet. Every morning I get on this train and get off feeling like a floppy sardine that’s just been let out of a tin and probably smelling worse. All to go to the soulless office block of the women’s magazine where I work as a fact-checker, and then do the exact same thing at half past five with all the other sweaty, irritable commuters who would really love nothing more than to poke their boss in the eye and run away to a beach somewhere.
Someone stands on my toe and a handbag hits me in the thigh as someone else swings it over their arm. Ow. Only four more days to go until the weekend, and then I can have two whole days of not having to leave the flat and face the crowds of London. Two whole days of uninterrupted Netflix, apart from when Mum calls to update me on my ex-boyfriend’s latest news, which she knows because they’re still online friends even though I deleted him over two years ago.
I jump back as a briefcase threatens to take out my kneecaps. There’s got to be more to life than this.
I look up and my eyes lock on to a man near me. Train Man is going somewhere today. Usually he only has a backpack with him, but today there’s a huge suitcase leaning against his leg, rucksack straps over both shoulders, and a holdall bag hooked over one arm. He’s standing up and holding on to a rail like I am, his attention on the phone in his hand, the lines around his eyes crinkled up as he looks down at it, and the sight of him makes something flutter inside me.
I see him quite often, but he’s always already on the train when I get on, and we’re usually much further apart. Up close, he’s even more gorgeous than I’d always thought he was. He’s got short brown hair, dimples denting his cheeks, and the kind of smile that makes you look twice, which I know because he’s one of the rare London commuters who smiles at others.
The noisy tube train full of other people’s body parts in places you don’t want other people’s body parts, the noise of people sniffing and coughing, an endless medley of beeps as people play with their phones, snippets of conversation that aren’t meant for me … they all fade into the background and the world turns into slow motion as he lifts his head, almost like he can feel my eyes on him, and looks directly at me. If it was anyone else, I’d look away instantly. Staring at strangers on the tube is a quick way to get yourself punched or worse, but it’s like a magnet is holding me, drawing my gaze to his, and his mouth curves up a tiny bit at each side, making it as impossible to look away now as it is every other time he smiles at me.
I feel that familiar nervous fluttering in the deepest part of my belly. It’s not butterflies. My stomach must have disagreed with the cereal I shoved down my throat before rushing out of the flat this morning. Even though it’s the same fluttery feeling I get every time I see him and he sees me. Maybe it’s because I’m never usually this close to him. Maybe those dimples have magical powers at this distance. Maybe I’m just getting dizzy from looking up at him because I’m so short and he’s the tallest person on the train, towering above every other passenger around us.
His smile grows as he looks at me, and I feel myself smiling back, unable not to return his wide and warm smile, the kind of smile you don’t usually see from fellow commuters on public transport. Open. Inviting. His gaze is still holding mine, his smile making his dimples deepen, and the fluttery feeling intensifies.
I feel like I could lean across the carriage and say hello to him, start a conversation, ask him where he’s off to. Although that might imply that I’ve studied him hard enough on previous journeys to work out that he doesn’t usually have that much luggage. And talking to him would be ridiculous. I can’t remember the last time I said hello to a stranger. It’s considered weird here, not like in the little country village where I grew up. People just don’t do that here.
He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, and he tilts his head almost like he’s trying to hold my gaze, and I wonder why. Does he know that I spend most journeys trying to work out what he does, because there’s no regularity to his routine? I’m on this train at eight o’clock every morning Monday to Friday, I look like I’m going into an office, but he’s always in jeans and a T-shirt, a jacket in the winter, and sometimes he’s on this train a couple of times a week, sometimes once a week, and other times weeks can pass without me seeing him. I don’t even know why I notice him so much. Is it because he smiles when our eyes meet? Maybe it’s because he’s so tall that you can’t help but notice him, or because London is such a big and crowded place that you rarely see the same faces more than once.
His dark eyes still haven’t left mine, and he pushes himself off the rail he’s leaning against, and for a split second I think he’s going to make the move and talk to me, and I feel like I’ve just stepped into a scene from one of my best friend Daphne’s favourite romcom movies. The leading couple’s eyes meet across a crowded train carriage and—
‘The next station is King’s Cross St. Pancras.’ An automated voice comes over the tannoy, making me jump because everything but his eyes has faded into the background.
I see him swear under his breath and a look of panic crosses his face. He checks his phone again, turns around and gathers up his suitcase, hoists the holdall bag higher up his arm, and readjusts the rucksack on his shoulders.
I feel ridiculously bereft at the loss of eye contact as the train slows, but I get swept along by the crowd as other people gather up their bags and make a mass exodus towards the doors. He glances back like he’s looking for me again, but I’m easy to miss amongst tall people and I’ve moved from where I was with the crowd. He looks around like he’s trying to locate me, and I want to call out or wave or something, but what am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, gorgeous Train Man, the strange short girl who’s spent the entire journey staring at you is still here staring at you?’
I’m not far behind him now, even though this isn’t my stop and it’s clearly his. I can see him in the throng of people, his hand wrapped around the handle of the huge wheeled suitcase he’s pulling behind him as the train comes to a stop.
As if the world turns to slow motion again, I see him glance at his phone once more and then go to pocket it, but instead of pushing it into the pocket of his jeans, it slides straight past and lands on the carriage floor at the exact moment the doors open and he, along with everyone else, rushes through them.
He hasn’t noticed.
Without thinking, I dart forward and grab the phone from the floor before someone treads on it. I stare at it for a moment. This is his phone and I have it. He doesn’t know he dropped it. There’s still time to catch up with him and give it back.
Zinnia will probably kill me for being late for work, and I’m still a few stops away from where I usually get off, but I don’t have time to wait. I follow the swarm as seemingly every other person in our carriage floods out, and I pause in the middle of them, aware of the annoyed grunts of people pushing past me as I try to see where he is. I follow the crowd off the platform and up the steps, straining to see over people’s heads and between shoulders.
I’m sure I see his hair in the distance as the crowd starts to thin out, but he’s moving faster than a jet-powered Usain Bolt after an energy drink.
‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘Wait up!’
He doesn’t react. He wouldn’t know who I was calling to, if the guy I’m following is even him.
‘Hey! You dropped your—’
Another passenger glares at me for shouting in his ear and I stop myself. I’m already out of breath and Train Man is nothing more than a blur in the distance. I rush in the same direction, but those steps have knackered me, and the faraway blob that might still be the back of his head turns a corner under the sign towards the overground trains, and I lose sight of him.
I race … well, limp … to the corner where I saw him turn, but the station fans out into