It's winter in New York, Root is sleeping alone in a bed that always feels too big for her. Too cold and lonely. Slowly opening her eyes to a painfully dull ceiling, the sound of a car door thudding open outside almost like they hit the car next to them and then the car door is heard closing. Root sighs, not one of those having to wake up too tired for the day sighs, but the too exhausted and sad to deal with life sighs. But she rises, kicks the blankets off of her and drags herself from the bed. Today is a day for straight up black coffee and nothing else. She dresses and brushes her teeth like the same routine everyday, like there isn't going to be anything special about this day. It'll just be like yesterday and the day before, though her head is kind of bugging her but she's pretty sure she didn't drink last night….right?
She goes to her car and sure enough it's just her luck that it was her car that she heard earlier getting hit by the car next to her. A giant scratch down the side of her driver side door. This is already turning out to be a great day. So she writes a 'thank you' note and throws it in the windshield wiper of the car next to her and sighs, perhaps she'll just take the subway today instead of driving all the way to work. As she drives there something seems off, like today is supposed to be some sort of special day, but she can't quite remember what it should be. After she parks her car on the street outside the train station she finds herself standing on the platform and see's men with roses and then it finally hits her, it's freaking Valentine's Day. Never needed the day, the only valentine she ever got was from her friend Hanna and her mother. But they're both gone now and she's had men and women come and go throughout her life and she's just never really gotten that attached to any of them. They're not Hanna or mom.
Saint Valentine who? Valentine's Day is just some stupid holiday invented by greeting card companies to make you feel like crap. Root stands there, so tired of the day already, staring at the empty tracks in front of her. She gets antsy and that's when she's had enough, she's ditching work today. So she decides to take a train to Montauk, she's not sure why but she feels this urge to just go there. She makes a quick call to her work and tells them she got food poisoning, of course they're going to believe it because she always shows up for work.
Here she finds herself walking down a beach in Montauk, it's snowing and she's completely forgotten she's had a briefcase in her hand this whole time. What the hell is she doing here? Great, Root. The waves seem sad today, violently sad. But it's winter and she's stupidly sitting on the steps of a beach house in Montauk, today is a sad day. She pulls a journal from her briefcase and flips through it, past drawings and poems to an empty page, noticing a page has been ripped out and she can't remember ripping it out. She jots down some words before they escape her, doodles a picture of the beach. She stops and just looks out at the waves, sighing she throws her journal back into her briefcase and walks out to greet the waves, they're licking at her boots. Boots that are now filled with sand. Sand is overrated anyways, it's just tiny rocks.
She casually smiles at a tiny brunette in a black hoodie walking along the beach, hair dyed blue. Hmmm, that's different. But Root can never make eye contact with anyone, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul. She can't handle that intimacy with a mere stranger just yet. She finds herself at a diner and orders a cup of coffee and while she waits she pulls out her journal of sorts, filled with drawings and poetry and everyday things that happen to her. Things she asks herself, things she wants to remember. Looking up from her lonely little seat by the window she sees the same blue haired woman from the beach, sneaking a very tiny bottle of what Root can only assume is alcohol and pouring it into her coffee.
Their eyes meet and the tiny blue haired woman raises her glasses and smirks, taking a sip. Which makes Root nervous as she quickly smiles and goes back to her journal. She thinks for a minute, chuckles, and then writes.
Why do I fall in love with every woman I see...who shows me the least bit of attention?
She's given her cup of coffee and Root just smiles at the waitress as she sips her own cup of coffee. Briefly glimpsing at the woman across the room who is now so caught up in devouring the plate of food in front of her that it's like Root never existed in the first place. She smiles at that irony of that, back to her coffee and journal.
After Root finishes her coffee she pays and makes her way back to the train station, briefcase in hand. There's a lonely melancholy about her today but she's definitely not kicking herself for ditching work. The barren train station, if you can call it that, is just Root. The sad everyday sign reading, Montauk, sits in the background. Root just stands there sighing as she kicks a rock with her boot. Looking up she spots that same woman that it seems she's spent the whole day with, sort of, same places but no words exchanged.
Root walks to the opposite side of the platform trying to ignore the woman in her hoodie as she glares from the end of the platform and peaks over at Root. And Root just tries to nonchalantly act as if she hasn't noticed her presence and is just casually waiting for the train. But the woman waves at her and Root shyly waves back and looks at the ground. The sound of the train in the distance her sweet release. Waiting for the train to finally settle is making her antsy. The moment the doors open Root rushes in and settles herself in the second to last seat in the back of the cabin and the blue haired woman chooses a seat a few in front of her and glares. As soon as all the passengers are loaded or released the train makes its sleepy little journey back in the opposite direction. Her journal open in her lap. And Root just wants to fall asleep as the train begins to lull her but there's that glare from across the cabin boring into her.
"Hey," comes from the tiny blue haired woman as she does a little two finger salute off the top of her head.
"Uh, hi," Root just gives a tiny wave back and gulps as the woman gets up and makes her way towards her.
"Where you headed?" the woman sits in the seat in front of her, her arms resting on the back of the chair.
"Um, to the Rockville Center."
"What a coincidence, so am I." she pauses and smirks, "Do I know you?"
"I don't think so," Root smiles nervously.
The woman narrows her gaze and glares, "Do you ever shop at Barnes & Noble?"
Root smirks a kind of 'yeah doesn't everyone' type of smirk, "Yeah, on occasion."
"Then that's probably where I've seen you, I've worked there for about five years now."
"No, I think I would've remembered you."
"That might be because my hair changes every so often, right now it might be blue but I tend to change it up a bit. Blue one week, orange the next."
"Oh, okay, well then maybe."
"People tend to say I don't express my emotions very well, so I express myself through my hair and well my occasional episode of beating up some creep who won't leave me alone."
"I'm sure that's not true, the expressing emotions very well part, not the-the beating up of creeps part," Root just awkwardly stumbles through her words.
"You don't know me, so...you don't know, do you?"
Root suddenly wishes that she was alone right now and not spewing garbage at this beautiful woman who is for some reason talking to her. She doesn't even seem to like people that much, why is she even talking to her?
Shaking her head bashfully Root just manages a, "No. I was just trying to be nice."
"I got that," for a minute they sit in awkward silence and then she turns back to Root and extends her hand for a handshake, "My names Sameen Shaw. But you can call me Shaw."
Root flinches at the softness of Shaw's hand as she shakes it, "Samantha Groves. But you can call me Root."
"Root? Do I even want to know where that name came from?"
"It just has to deal with computers, I'll leave it at that. But your name…"
"What about my name?" Shaw just glares.
"It means precious, doesn't it?"
"Yeah so? It hardly fits. Truth be told I'm quite the vindictive little bitch."
Root just giggles at the smirk on Shaw's face, "I wouldn't think that about you."
"Really why?"
"Well, you just don't seem like you are, you seem nice."
Shaw stands and walks around to the seat next to Root, "Oh, now I'm the nice one? Don't you know any other adjectives? I don't need myself to be it and I don't need anyone to be nice at me."
"I get it, I'm sorry."
They just sit in silence for an awkward amount of time until Shaw looks over and sighs, "I'm...sorry. I'm a little out of sorts today. I sometimes don't know what I'm going to like from one minute to the next but I guess I like your 'nice' right now."
Root blushes and stares back out the window and then to the journal in her hand, "Well, I should really get back to my writing."
"Yeah, whatever," Shaw gets up and goes back to her seat.
Root is finally able to breath a sigh of relief and goes back to her journal, not sure what she was even going to write before and just rests her head against the glass. And suddenly smiling to herself she kind of wishes that the train ride would never end.