I had to repost this chapter, because I messed up something important, so yeah... You can read again if you want to, or if you don't, you could always go back after some time. (:
CHAPTER 3: I BARELY KNOW YOU
We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of
your eyes
William Carlos Williams – Paterson
April 2nd / April 3rd
Kate sits quietly on the bench at the platform 6, waiting for the train to arrive, so she will be able to finally escape this city. People are totally right when they say that Paris is for lovers only, because Kate has seen it with her own eyes, all of it. It was all hiding in that damn stranger's cobalt blue eyes and in his nervous smile. She is fascinated by him, yet so familiarly disgusted with herself to even think about ever being able to be enough for him, for anyone in that matter.
A whistle sounds nearby and Kate jumps at her seat, finds that it's only a flustered father calling his children to follow him.
Kate makes herself comfortable again and lights another cigarette. She's got to be careful now, she only has half a pack left and the night train to Brussels takes 4 hours and she doesn't know if she'll be able to fall asleep at all.
She searches in her backpack for a bottle of water, finds it almost empty. The train leaves at 11 PM, so she still has about ten minutes to go downstairs to the restrooms and fill up the bottle. She quickly gathers all her stuff and struts down the marble stairs, never noticing a man just arriving at the platform.
Rick decides to just buy the InterRail card – it's easier this way – and tries to think of a place to drive to tonight. He skims the list of departures and sees the closest one is 11PM; Brussels.
Well, why not, he thinks absentmindedly and slowly ascends the stairs to platform 6. The tracks are empty, not a train in sight, but he knows it will be coming sooner or later. It's dark now anyway and foggy with smoke, so Rick can't see much of anything, except for the giant railway clock hanging from the roof.
There's a sound of a train moving along the tracks somewhere in the distance and Rick pulls his hoodie over his head, zips up his bag and shoves the strap onto his shoulder. It's a bit heavy, but he'll survive.
The train arrives and the doors open, letting passengers out. Rick patiently waits, and while doing that, he looks on both sides of the platform, trying to see if there are any other lonely night travelers like himself waiting to board the train.
He sees an old man at his left; he's carrying a brown box. Richard could only guess what's in it. There's a middle-aged couple on his right, holding hands and kissing. They look happy, Rick notices. There are a lot of people waiting for this train, their chance to go somewhere better. Maybe they find their happiness in Brussels.
Rick doesn't have time to look behind his back, because right then one of the uniformed men comes out and tells them they can go in. He takes a careful step to the inside of the fairly new steel wagon, looks around to see where it's best to spend these 4 hours in.
He chooses one of the coupes on his right, closes the door after him and slumps down into a chair, closes his eyes for a moment.
Then he realizes someone has knocked and is now holding the door open.
He doesn't have time to school his expression before his bewildered and flustered smile gives him away.
Kate groans at herself inwardly and quickly boards the train. She was meaning to catch a coupe all for herself, but now probably all of them will be already occupied. She doesn't really want to share her quite personal space with anyone, but she'll clench her teeth if needed.
She shuffles the hallway of the wagon quickly and sees that all the coupes are already vacated, except for one, with curtains pulled together and door closed. Kate desperately wishes it's empty inside that coupe, but she still knocks.
What she finds in the small space is better than an empty coupe.
"You…" she starts with intention to scold him for following her of accuse him of being a stalker, but then there are also his surprised eyes and his flushed face; a proof that he had no idea she'd be boarding right this train.
She kind of just stands there, in between the sliding doors and tries to form a sentence, something that would sound calm and pulled-together. Instead she jumps and stumbles forward as the train finally moves.
Rick has no words for the vision in front of him. No words.
She's wearing same clothes as a few hours ago, but her eyes look more alive in the light of the coupe, her skin looks paler and her face more fragile, her mouth shut in a tight line above her chin.
"You…" she grits out and he realizes she does remember him, the way they had stared at each other in the crowded piano bar.
The train suddenly moves and the woman stumbles into the coupe, her hands clutching her backpack with steel fingers.
"Hey," he gasps. He doesn't think he's capable of saying anything more, not with her beauty spreading like smoke all over the place. There's a short moment of horrifying silence from both of them and then she erupts like a volcano.
"Are you following me!?" she hisses and he kind of blacks out for a second there, because she looks really scary and he can't help but think this look with narrowed eyes and clenched teeth and her nostrils flaring has been practiced on someone before.
"N – no!" he croaks out and lifts his hands as in surrender. He's surrendering to her, yes. She can have him any way she wants.
"Then what the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm – I – I don't know, I just wandered and then I saw the sign and the InterRail – Brussels, it was the first, I –"
"Stop babbling," she interrupts, then sighs and closes her eyes. He figures she's composing herself. When her eyes open again, there is a determination there, sealed into the soft grass of her greenish irises.
"Okay… Okay. So this is what we're gonna do," she says and he can't really listen to what she's saying because she looks really good and he's sure she's going to be the death of him.
"Hey!" He snaps out of his daydreaming and has the decency to at least look embarrassed.
"Sorry," he mutters. He has a weird hunch that she's planning on killing him, but she only sighs and presses two fingers to her left temple.
"Come on, move your bags. I need to sit down, my feet are killing me." He does as she had said and then carefully leans back into his own seat. As Kate sits down and groans, he feels a rush of blood to his southern parts and desperately tries to think of dead puppies to not embarrass himself any further.
"What are you doing here?" he asks her instead. Her eyes open and bore into his. He blinks and swallows hard under her steady, calculating gaze. She had seemed much nicer back in the bar.
"Vacation."
"But you seem lost," he comments without thinking in advance and it backfires as soon as the woman straightens her back and leans toward him.
"I'm not lost. I have a plan, an InterRail card, which I plan on using often, and I know where I wish to go for my next destination. Can you say the same for yourself?" Rick has to remind himself how to breathe and just as he's about to say something, a man in blue uniform opens the door and asks for their tickets.
They don't speak at all after that.
Kate has a feeling that she's scared the poor guy away and as much as she hates herself for doing so, she wants to not become attached to someone who's just as lost as she is, maybe even more. She wants freedom and her own free will at her disposal.
So why doesn't she now, as she looks at the mystery man, quietly resting with his eyes closed and his head against the cushioned seat, feel an urge to run away? She's always been about running.
As she tries to think this through, she finds her eyes slipping closed without her volition, but she promptly stops thinking and listens to her body instead.
Let him in, let him in, let him in.
When Rick wakes up from his slumber, the girl is lying down on the seats on the other side of the coupe, her legs curled, her knees against her stomach. She looks … different in her sleep. Peaceful. Like there's nothing troubling her, although Rick knows that's not exactly true.
The brunette shivers suddenly and cuddles her back into the cushions, lets out an uncomfortable moan.
She must be cold.
Rick takes a blanket out of his backpack and covers her with it, tucks the end of it under her feet. She helps him unconsciously in her sleep; lifts up the hem to her chin and releases a happy sigh that brings smile onto Rick's lips.
He sits back on his rightful spot then, looks at the still-stranger and tries to think of a story for her: young woman, probably in her early twenties, travelling alone across Europe. And she's not exactly scared of doing that without anyone?
So she must know how to take care of herself.
Rick wonders what led her to Europe, why she felt the need to escape.
He brings out his writing book, scribbles down notes about the woman lying across from him, tries to put her beauty into words. He manages, somehow, although it's hard. But he writes for a long time, makes up a character that's based on her; fierce and strong and pretty and determined.
He thinks he loses his words somewhere around the time when she opens her eyes and lifts her head.
"Hi," he says. She looks confused, but then she sits up and notices the blanket he tucked her into.
"Wha – is this yours?" she asks, curling an eyebrow up.
"Yeah. I – I thought you would… You were shivering in your sleep and I had a blanket and I thought you'd be more comfortable with it. I – I could –"
"Stop." He shuts his mouth and she smiles.
"Thank you. For the blanket. I know I wasn't very nice to you before."
"Oh, don't worry. I can understand why one would be upset about this… situation."
Kate wakes up warm and at least a bit more comfortable than she fell asleep. The sight before her eyes greets her with a strangled 'Hi' and Kate knows he took care of her, but she still asks.
And apologizes. Because this man is kind of sweet. And cute.
"I'm not upset," she says then, in the answer to his previous comment.
"Of course you're not."
"I'm serious."
"Okay." He allows a smirk to appear on his face and she rolls her eyes.
"Whatever," she mumbles and instead curves her back, stretches it, feels the muscles pop, so she groans.
"It's pretty uncomfortable sleeping in here if you don't have the seats pulled out, you know." Kate turns her head back to the man and sees he's just being thoughtful.
He probably doesn't mean to tease, right?
"Right… How do I do that, exactly?" she asks, because she has no idea. Trains in New York are much different than these in Europe.
"You have to pull the handle on the right-hand side." Kate finds the silver handle and pulls on it and the seats she's sitting on spread out to the middle of the coupe.
"Wow."
"Yeah."
It's quiet after Kate settles back down. She still has the stranger's blanket and it smells really, really good, like lemons and summer and him. It's a bit weird, because she doesn't even know the guy, but it feels like there's just something about him, that's attracting her to him like a moss to a flame.
"What's your name?" she asks suddenly, in her quest to find out what's so different about him. He grins and extends his hand.
"Hello, I'm Rick," he tells her and Kate has to hold back a smile. She takes Rick's hand and as their palms brush, she hears him gasp and feels the fire burning slow in her own stomach.
"I'm Kate," she offers back and the hand wrapped around hers squeezes, then slowly drops away. Kate mentally slaps herself for wishing it wouldn't.
"Kate," he says it himself, rolling her name on his tongue. It sounds rather endearing… And maybe just a tiny bit sexy…
Okay, so a lot sexy.
Rick looks away from her and busies himself with something else once again.
Kate studies him then, watches as he reads something that doesn't quite look like a book. His facial expressions are interesting, his lip curling and his brows furrowing, his nose twitching. Kate's mesmerized with the fall of his hair over his forehead and the way his lips would sometimes form the words he's reading. He looks really young. She wonders how old he is, how many years he's spent living.
And then it kind of just slips out of her mouth.
"How old are you?" He looks at her with surprise painted across his face.
"I'm 24. Why?"
"No reason."
"How old are you?" he asks.
"22."
"Ah. Still in college?"
"No, actually. I – I'm in the Academy."
"Academy?"
"Yes."
"As in… police academy?" Kate nods and bites her lip to stop an amused smile from spreading. The man looks like he's just been run over by a truck, he's gaping so hard, eyes wide like saucers.
"You – you're a cop?" he asks in disbelief and Kate frowns.
"Do you think women aren't strong enough to be one?"
"No, no, just – you're – you don't look like a cop," Rick quickly explains and looks her up and down.
"Is there a dress code for cops?" She's having fun. He's so easy.
"N – no?" he answers, although it does sound more like a question. Kate smirks and decides to let it go for now.
"What are you reading?" she asks him and he looks at her, confused.
"The black book in your lap. It is a book, right?"
"Nah. It's actually kind of like a diary."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. It's not a diary, though. It's – I'm… I like to write. So… Yeah," he mumbles and then puts the book back into his backpack. He doesn't really want Kate to – knowingly or unknowingly – read his words, especially not ones he wrote for – about her.
"Do you like to read, too?" Rick's head snaps back up from his hands and she seems interested in that topic, like she's spent her childhood collecting books and storing them onto shelves, marking the sentences she liked most. He figures he's not far from truth.
"Yeah, I do."
"Favorite author?"
"Bukowski. Definitely Bukowski."
"Oh. You look more like the 'Patterson type' to me," she tells him and then smirks as he narrows his eyes.
"No. Bukowski's my favorite. Yours?"
"Dostojevski," she rolls the surname out without trouble.
"Russian realism, huh?"
"Yes. I wanted to study literature, especially the Russian one, but then…" Kate trails off and suddenly she's busy with her search for cigarettes in her backpack. Rick doesn't push. He knows she probably doesn't want to talk about it, and really, she's barely known him for a few hours, what made him think she'd ever tell him her troubles?
"You want one?" she asks, and he nods his head. She passes him one and lights both of them, then leans backward and chews her lip in silence as she stares out of the window.
"Are you okay?" he asks after a few minutes, when their cigarettes are already resting in the ashtray. Kate looks at him and a corner of her mouth lifts up. It lifts his heart for a few millimeters, too.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"Good. That's – good."
They don't speak after that.
Like it? Hate it? Reviews would be great, people.
Ariela