But everybody says this place is beautiful, and you'd be crazy to say goodbye.
She leans her head wearily against the cool window of the train as it passes through Queens. It's been a long journey; from the three-hour bus drive from Hanover into Boston, to now: the home stretch of another three-hour train ride into Grand Central. She's spoken to her mother no more than three times throughout the past year; Blair and Nate and Chuck even less. I'm returning for Eric, she keeps convincing herself, for Eric, although she simply can't rebut the twist of her stomach and weight of her heart when she thinks of her Natie. She hasn't been oblivious to her former life – she's still subscribed to the petty, shallow, addictive blasts of Gossip Girl – but for the most part, she's returning blind to the dramas of the Upper East Side. And it makes her anxious. Her eyes dance skittishly as she stares out the window while they make their way towards Manhattan. She's spent the past year trying to stay away from the city, coming up with half-assed excuses during breaks in the school year to avoid returning to the mess she left behind; but even she can't deny how her heart swells and surges with some inexplicable emotion as the iconic skyline comes into view.
As the train comes to a halt, she drags off her luggage (she's evolved from her little Balenciaga bag to a bursting Kenneth Cole suitcase), wheeling it behind her as she steps into Grand Central. Glassy eyes stare out over the lower floor of the extravagant station; and when she turns away again, broken from her reverie, a large bearded man offers her a falafel. And somehow, she can't help but grin at him. She's home.
-
Okay this became impossible not to write. I am well aware that it's nowhere near up to my standard, but I don't think I can do that much more to it.
Opening line is Talihina Sky by the Kings of Leon; summary lyrics and title are from the Rolling Stone's Going Home.
CJM.