Page 23 of Leaving the Station
It was the truth. I was upset about everything , so I couldn’t narrow it down to any one complaint.
“Is it because I said... ,” Alden began.
“No,” I repeated.
He was speaking, of course, about when he said he was falling for me.
A minute went by. Someone stumbled past his open window, shouting incoherently.
“Then have you thought about it?”
Alden was a smart boy; he knew the answer.
So all I said was, “I’ll deal us in this time.”
It was the worst possible response, and the only one I could give.
We played in silence until his watch beeped a second time.
“Okay, now I get a redo.”
“A what?”
“We get to repeat this hour,” he said, showing me his watch, which once again read two a.m. “Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head. “It means we get a second chance.”
He was offering me something very few people ever got, and I wanted to take it. I wanted this one inconvenient form of time travel to change my life, however slightly.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
He leaned in and kissed me. Maybe for this second two a.m. I could be the girl who would’ve told him she was falling too.
Wednesday, 4:45 a.m., Approaching Grand Forks, ND
Aya throws her book into her lap. “Oakley, you’re not even awake,” she whines. “And we’re getting to the good part.”
Oakley mutters in her sleep, and Aya rolls her eyes.
“Sorry about her,” I tell Aya. “She’s just tired.”
I wonder why .
“I’ll read more when she’s awake,” she says, yawning.
I tell Aya that it’s time to head back to her room, insisting that she should at least try to get some rest. Then I come back
for Oakley.
She leans on me as we walk to the sleeper car.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Of course.”
“No.” She leans her head against my shoulder and mutters into my sweatshirt. “For everything.”
“Any time.”
I ease her into the lower bunk, then sit next to her as she falls asleep. She looks like how I imagine a fairy-tale princess might, lying in her tower, hidden from the world.
She’s more peaceful than I’ve ever seen her.
I head back out to the observation car, and there’s a surprise visitor.
“Edward?”
He turns from where he’s sitting to wave me over. “Hey, Zoe,” he says, peppy as ever.
“What are you doing up here?” I ask.
“I don’t live in the snack car, silly.”
“I know that,” I tell him. “But wouldn’t you rather be in the employee quarters?”
“Not right now,” he says. “Sometimes I like to remind myself what it feels like to take the train as a regular citizen.”
“Of course,” I say. “Glad you’re hanging out with the plebs.”
He laughs and puts his book down, patting the seat next to him. “Let’s chat. I like getting to know the people of the train.”
I comply. “Happy to be of service.”
“So,” he says, “tell me about yourself.”
“Is this a first date?”
He laughs at that. “You’re funny.”
“I’m really not.”
His face turns serious. “And I’m not kidding. I want to know about you. Let’s hear it.”
“But we’re all getting off the train tomorrow,” I say. “Why would you want to know more about me when you’re about to meet
a whole new batch of people?”
He’s taken aback by this, which: fair. Maybe it’s a silly question. For anyone other than me, the answer would be simple. Just because.
“Because every single person who takes the train is fascinating to me,” he says. “I get to talk to people from all over the
world. I’ve spoken to bankers from Japan and singers from Croatia. I might not see you again, but at least I’ll have met you.”
His words stir a feeling in me that I don’t want to have stirred. I wanted to fade into the background on this train ride—I
didn’t want to think about who I was or who I had to be.
But Edward sees everyone, regardless of whether they want him to or not. I don’t know how he sees me; I just know that he does.
My thoughts spiral from there until Edward waves a hand over my face. “Are you okay?”
I nod, and the movement shakes the worst of the anxiety out of me. “I’m fine.”
“Come on,” he says. “Spill. There has to be a reason you’re on the train.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I do. Not everything, but parts of it—disappointing my parents, how I can’t for the life of me
figure out who I am now that I’m not going to be a doctor, how it’s been hanging out with Oakley. How I’m worried I’ve messed
up what I worked so hard for in high school.
“How old are you?” he asks when I’m done.
“Eighteen.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“That’s twice my age.” It’s the same thing I said to Aya on the first day, but in reverse.
“Thank you for making me feel elderly,” Edward says, “but that’s not the point. The point is, back in my twenties, I started my life essentially from scratch every single year, claiming it was because some planet or another was in retrograde. And you’re not even twenty. You’re a baby.”
“I feel ancient,” I tell him.
“That may be so, but you have time to figure out who you are. Honestly, it’ll be okay if you never figure it out.” I must
give him a horrified look because he adds, “Not everything you do has to have lasting, life-altering consequences. Sometimes
you can do things just for the sake of it. I went to law school when I was twenty-four—it wasn’t for me. I just wanted to
be able to say, ‘I object.’”
I laugh at that, and he adds, “This doesn’t have to be your whole life, forever. You can always change tracks.” At this, he
stands up. “Speaking of which, I have to set up the snack car.”
“Already?” I check my phone. “It’s barely five.”
The café opens at six, when quiet hours are over and everyone’s joints are creaky from a night of train-sleep.
“I don’t just stand there and look pretty,” he says. “I have coffee to brew, food to unpack, inventory to check and restock.
People need their snacks.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because he’s right; he’s the one who keeps the train running and the passengers from losing their minds.
He’s so easily satisfied with his life; providing travelers snacks and coffee is enough for him.
And yet nothing is ever enough for me.