The steel wheels clattered on the rails as the Class 319 roared into the station, bringing with it a warm gust of wind. The air whoomphed as each set of double doors passed the spot on which Helen was stood.
Eventually, the train came to a halt and the doors made a series of rapid bleeping noises before they opened. She stepped aside to let the alighting passengers off before stepping onto the train herself. It was always handy when more people got off than on, as it meant she’d be able to get a seat for the journey. Not that sitting on a sticky twenty-year-old seat next to an empty sandwich wrapper and a well-thumbed copy of the Metro was much to look forward to.
She glanced into the first-class compartment a little further down the carriage. A glass screen and a little bit of tissue paper for a headrest cover. Hardly the height of luxury, she thought, yet the train company were charging people double the price to sit in there.
She had tried telling herself that she wouldn't make an effort; he would just have to make do with how she came. It had never bothered him before, after all. Not that he'd ever taken much notice. Here she was, though, her glowing blonde hair straightened and flicked out at the ends, delicately glancing off her shoulders. She felt anything but delicate. She knew time had been kind to her in some ways and evil in others.
She’d had the internal battle over whether to just turn up as she was in order to show him that she didn’t care for his opinion and was now a free woman, or whether she should go the whole hog and get herself properly tarted up to make him jealous of what he’d done and lost. In the end, she’d opted for a bit of both. Sitting on the fence, as always.
She cursed Em for not coming with her. She didn't want to meet him, she said. After all that Helen had told her about him, she said, she quite hoped she would never even get the opportunity to bump into him. She certainly wasn't going to try and see him voluntarily. Helen had chided Em for leaving her to do this on her own. She must have known it wasn't going to be easy for her, but it had to be done. Inside, she hated him too, but still. It had to be done. Things had to be said and the air had to be cleared. After all, surely it was all water under the bridge now?
It hadn’t been hard to find him, especially as he had never actually gone anywhere. She knew he wouldn’t have. She knew what a territorial creature he was — certainly not one to embrace change in any sense of the word.
She had no clue as to how she was going to explain to him why she'd done it. Of course, she knew why she'd done it but it made it no easier to explain things to him. The more that time had passed, the harder it had got. At first it was easy to say nothing and cut loose. The freedom had been new and liberating. As the dust had settled she had begun to realise that he deserved an explanation. The more the dust settled, though, the harder it became to walk across the floor for fear of leaving footprints.
She knew he'd feel betrayed and hurt, even now. He always had been one to hold a grudge and she doubted very much whether he would have changed. They say everyone deserves a second chance, but what about a third or a fourth? No. She knew it. He would never change.