It was five to eleven, meaning there wasn’t much time before the eleven-twenty to Manchester Piccadilly left the station. Double-checking the departures board, I started to run towards platform fourteen, my body straining to find her, my mind only focused on telling her not to go, but to stay with me instead. Then I tripped over a little wheelie suitcase being pulled by a posh-looking guy in jeans and his office shoes.
I skidded and stumbled, trying to keep my balance. He tutted, I pulled a face at his tiny luggage and we moved on. I settled on a brisk walk after that. I only had to go a hundred yards or so, and it was probably best not to be out of breath or carrying a fractured collarbone when I got there. Even though I wasn’t running, my heart was getting in a full cardio workout in my chest. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe and even in the chilly station I could feel the sweat dripping down my body under my clothes and heavy coat. Sweaty and panting — I wasn’t going to be able to rely on my looks to get Hannah off that train.
I closed in on the platform and realised I didn’t have any kind of ticket. But there wasn’t time for that; I was going to hop the barriers and worry about the consequences later. Looking around to check for staff, I planted one foot on the base of the metal barrier and swung the other leg over the top. Except I didn’t quite clear it, and gave my ankle a knock on the cornered edge of the painted metal. I was a bit stuck — my right foot was five feet in the air, my left foot dangling unable to reach the ground, and the rest of me was clutching the bars trying not to fall. It was from there that I could see a granny and her two small grandchildren watching me as they walked through the permanently open ticket gates to the platform. I gave a little wave and dropped out of sight as I fell backwards to the ground. Jumping to my feet, I cursed myself for wasting more time and hurried back around to walk through the gates with everyone else, hobbling slightly from my freshly banged ankle.
Bobbing around bicycles and rucksacks, I got as close to the train as I could, shuffling along the nobbled concrete of the platform edge, wanting to rush but looking in the windows carefully to make sure I didn’t miss her. The first-class carriages went by, and it was clear she hadn’t splashed out on an upgrade, then I started looking through into the standard seating and still couldn’t find her. I picked up my pace as more people hurried on, but still I couldn’t see her. Past hugging couples, and slouching pods of students, I began to doubt myself — maybe I’d got the wrong train; maybe she was going somewhere else.
Or maybe she was still in Costa, making up with Rob right now.
The idea of that almost made me physically sick. I took a deep breath and out of the corner of my eye, after having almost rushed straight past, I saw her.
She was sitting alone in a four-seat section, with a two-litre bottle of water, a coffee almost the same size, a share bag of chocolates and a stack of trashy mags on the table. But she wasn’t reading them, she was staring out of the far window, a thumbnail in her mouth, looking edgy and thoughtful.
I stood there watching her, waiting for her to look my way, too scared to move. But she didn’t turn my way. Running a hand through my hair, I clenched and unclenched my fists, stood as tall as I could, blinked, tried to smile, and tapped on the glass.
Hannah’s first reaction was a surprised smile, as if she’d just seen someone she didn’t expect to when she was on a night out. But that soon changed to confusion, embarrassment, and what looked like dread.
Still, she looked beautiful as our eyes met.
OK, she looked hungover and tired, and as if she was wearing the clothes she went out in days ago, and clearly hadn’t made it to Boots to buy a new hairbrush. But her bitten, chapped lips, her sickly pale but now flushing cheeks, and dark-circled eyes, bloodshot from tiredness or tears, made a face I couldn’t stop looking at and wanted to see and kiss every day.
I looked at her hopefully, eyebrow raised, and forced a big smile. I shrugged and gestured with a nod to the carriage door. Finally, she smiled again, in a resigned kind of way, and shuffled from her window seat towards the door.
‘What are you doing here? How did you find me?’ she asked agitatedly as she stepped down through the door, but not down that final step to join me on the platform.
‘You need to learn how to stop sharing so much information on Facebook. Rob checked your profile and you’d tagged yourself at the station coffee-shop. I guessed you’d be heading back to our old stomping ground.’
‘Frigging social networks… The plan had originally been a few days in Paris, but then I decided Manchester instead — go back to where I started down this path, work out how far I can trace back my steps, and see if I want to go in another direction instead. Also, when I left the house in a fit of rage against my husband I didn’t come out with my passport, so getting anywhere beyond the Isle of Wight is beyond me. Is he with you?’
‘No. Well, yes, he’s here.’
‘You haven’t said anything to him?’
‘Hannah, I’ve told him everything.’
Her eyes went wide in surprise.
‘You didn’t!’
‘I needed to if I was going to come here and say what I wanted to say.’
‘But what’s he going to do? He was going to need you over the next while now I’ve left.’
‘But I don’t want to help him out! I’m here for us.’
‘Us?’
The look of confusion wasn’t what I was looking for at that point, but I wasn’t going to stop.
‘First of all, I’m sorry for taking advantage of you.’
‘You? Taking advantage of me? Bless you, hun, I’ve needed a laugh today. I think you’ll find it was the other way around. And I’m truly sorry about that.’
‘I did so take advantage!’
‘Sorry, other way around.’
‘I did! You were drunk. I pressed myself on you.’
‘You were pressed on me all right, but that was because I had to give you a fireman’s lift up the stairs to get to your place. Suggests to me I was the one taking liberties with the incapacitated.’
‘I can’t remember that bit,’ I confessed.
‘Can you remember the rest of it?’ Hannah asked with a sly smile.
‘It’s been coming back to me.’
‘Pretty fun, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’ I grinned.
‘And that dead arm?’
‘Much better now.’
‘Good.’
Despite seeing us standing there, a guy dressed like the young Springsteen and carrying two guitars insisted on using the door Hannah was standing at to get on the train, and she vanished from sight for a minute. The glow from the sneaky enjoyment of remembering what happened last night vanished with her too, and I was left wondering what it had meant to her.
‘So what was it? It was just a revenge thing?’ I asked as she came back to the doorway.
‘Dan, no! It was, I don’t know what it was… After you tried to kiss me the other week I kept thinking about it, wondering what it meant. And it was confusing. But it was good to know someone felt that way about me, I guess. When I came out last night, what happened wasn’t the plan, but I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s shit when you feel unwanted, and uncertain about yourself, and don’t know what to do.’
‘You don’t have to feel like that any more,’ I insisted. ‘I want you. I want something to happen with us. This year’s been so tough for me, and the only moment of light in the whole time has been my time with you.’
‘I hate to tell you, bud, but it’s still January.’
‘But I’ve had to think more in the last few weeks than I have in years. You’ve said I’m too polite — I worry too much about what other people think and not what I want. And you’re right. I do that. But that’s because I was drifting. I didn’t know what I wanted, or there was nothing I wanted enough. And now I don’t care what other people think, or how stupid or terrible I look. I don’t care that I’m breaking my best friend’s heart to do this. I think about you all the time, and we need to be together.’
In the barrage of shots, something landed. I could see her thinking, see her doubting her decision to run. But I wasn’t there yet.
‘But then what? What if I get off this train right now, and we head back to yours to be naked and sweaty for the next seventy-two hours? What about after that?’
‘We could be happy! Aside probably from some chafing. We could get your passport, go to Paris. Come back and hang out in trendy bars and feel slightly intimidated. Or we could stay at home and curl up and watch movies, make sarcastic remarks together about cheesy cookery shows. We could do it — this could work. Especially if I was given some time for warming up and stretching exercises…’
‘And then what?’
‘Then? I don’t know…’
‘Divorce for me? Marriage, new house, kids?’
‘Well, yes, but…’
‘All the stuff I’ve got now. All the things I’m tired of and don’t want now?’
‘But with me! It’ll be different because it’s with me. Because I care about what you think and want to make you happy. I’ve thought about all that stuff, and I want it, you know I do. But I can’t even think about it now, because all I want at this moment is you.’
‘I’m tired of relationships where to make one person happy it’s like you’ve got to make the other one miserable. You’re being selfish for once, and, y’know, good for you. But you don’t really want me. Oh, you do now, then in six months’ time when the sheen wears off and I won’t change to fit with the life you want that’ll be it. You won’t be an arsehole like Rob, but things will break. But I’m not going because of you or Rob or what’s happened. I’ve been coasting for a decade. My twenties are gone, and what have I done that I wanted to do?’
‘I love you.’
She winced slightly as I said it.
‘I love you,’ I said again, ‘and I know that sounds sudden, and it is for me too. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know I felt like this a few weeks ago or a few days ago even. But I think it’s always been there, somewhere, ever since we all first met, and I saw you first. I even had a crush on you for the first three years of your marriage.’
‘It’s still a crush, Dan.’
‘What can I do or say right now that will show you I really mean it? Let me get on that train right now. We can leave together.’
‘You love me so much you’ll risk an on-the-spot fine for not having a ticket?’
‘And so do I. I’m leaving you — I’m leaving Rob — for me.’
‘What do you want me to do? Get down on my knees? I’ll do it.’
That got a raised eyebrow and a ‘don’t you dare!’ look.
Whistles were blowing on the platform, electronic doors started bleeping and a platform guard was heading our way. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, not a single thing more, that could let her know why she was wrong and how I really felt. My head was racing with panicky thoughts and I shut my eyes tight in frustration just trying to find a way. I opened them and she was still there smiling at me, but I could see tears that were a blink away.
‘Please stay with me.’
She shook her head, just once, just slightly. The doors finally shut and the train started pulling away. I walked alongside for a while feeling stupid, walking faster as the train gathered speed, not wanting to stop seeing her and for her to be gone. Eventually, I stopped and I watched as her carriage moved out of sight, the sound of the engines getting quieter as the train sped up and accelerated away, fading but still audible as it disappeared. The only sounds on the deserted platform now the distant noise of the station concourse, and increasingly loud running footsteps. Somebody’s missed their connection, I thought as they got closer and closer.
I turned towards them just in time to see Rob’s arm flailing towards me and his fist close in on my only remaining non-bruised eye.