From NYC to Boston

Grand Central station. 12:02pm. Her train is in ten minutes. She’s waiting on the platform of her train to Boston. She’s worried and anxious. She’s biting her lips. She doesn’t see her lover. He should already be there. Her train is in nine minutes. Now in eight minutes. She’s passionately in love with him. She doesn’t know if their relationship will last long… She needed passion. Now she has it. It’s been two months the both of them. She’s feeling great. She loves the smell of his skin, the sensation when she touches him. She gets on the train. She checks if he isn't already inside, in case she has missed him. She gets out. He wasn’t in the coach. Seven minutes. She remembers the first time they kissed. She wanted his mouth for three years. They have been hitting on each other for three years. Quite a long time in fact. She smiles at this thought. Now she has him in her life and she’s blissful. He wasn’t ready when they met the first time. They did the date thing for two months and then he put an end to it. He broke up just a few months earlier and it was too soon for him to forge a new bond. That’s what he said at least. Six minutes. She’s out of her memories and notices he’s not there yet and the train is leaving soon. She comes back to the departure lounge. He’s not there either. On her way back to the platform she thinks maybe he had a traffic issue in the subway… After this disappointment, she moved on in her life. But somehow he stayed in her acquaintance. He never left her fantasies. He was aloof and not open to her. She was distant too. She read in his eyes he wanted her very badly sometimes but never say a word about it. Maybe she overinterpreted. Five minutes. The train makes its engine roar. She’s getting more and more anxious about him. He’s pretty on time normally. She goes back to the main room of the station and almost runs to the information point just under the huge clock. She asks the train employee if there has been trouble in the subway. She says the traffic is normal as far as she knows. She’s biting her lips once again. She was cold with him. Sometimes she had arguments with him. They met a few times at different events organized by a mutual acquaintance. But one day his position at work changed and they became colleagues. She couldn’t resist. She had a boyfriend. She loved him very deeply. She just had no passion for him. She rapidly falls in love strongly with her new colleague. Four minutes. She’s really scared something might have happened to him. She decides to look for a phone booth. She dials his work number. It rings. It’s still ringing. She gets the switchboard. She hangs up and dials his home number. It rings. It’s still ringing. No one answers. She hangs up the handset sadly. Three minutes. She runs back to the right platform. He’s the passionate love of her life, she knows it for a long time. She told her boyfriend a couple of months ago it was over. He was sorrowful. Full of tears and inconsolable. She tried to cuddle him. She tried to appease him. He rejected her. Never contacted her again. She understood it. She was still in love with him. She left for her impassioned lover. He knew it was for him. He discovered months ago her story with this man wasn’t over. She told him about it but despite what she was telling herself it was vivid. The last month her couple was chaotic due to this love growing inside of her for another man. Her boyfriend felt it and got pissed off at her much more easily. Two minutes. She takes her seat on the train. She looks through the train window and feels gloomy and wistful. She’s desperate. She senses the tears rolling down her cheek. One minute. She feels her mind crack. She knows it’s over. The train is going away without him next to her. The empty seat is too painful to look at. She can’t stop crying. She knows her feelings are far more than passion. She needs him. She needs the way he looks at her, teases her, his smile, his jokes, his body… she needs him completely. Suddenly she has the weird impression it was a dream and she just wake up. She stops crying. She tries to get rational. She checks her purse, she has a note from her latter boyfriend. It’s written: “Love, take care in Boston”. She doesn’t know if it’s from this morning or a message from months ago. It’s not her first time in Boston. She goes there for work sometimes. She senses her stomach gets her back to what she thinks might be the reality. Her inside is tearing her apart. But she’s getting more and more doubtful about what’s real and what’s not. She’s lost and she’s going to Boston. She doesn’t even know why… 

He’s next to his phone. At home. He knows it’s her. He can’t pick up the phone. After her phone call, he calls his work. He asks if he has a message. The secretary tells him she called. It was her earlier. He paces up and down in his condo. He’s smoking nervously. His cigarette is barely over, he’s already striking another match to light the new one. The phone rings once again. He knows it’s not her, the train is gone. It’s Cecilia. His best friend. He tells her he didn’t manage to leave with her. Cecilia isn’t surprised. She seems glad. She has good news too. Cecilia says she’s free now. He’s afraid of what it means. She’s single. His heart bumps fast in his chest. He can’t say a word. He’s speechless. He’s been waiting for this for so long. He hangs up. He thinks to her. He loves her. He loves Cecilia too. He broke up before because he cherished her. He’s lost. And he doesn’t know if he isn’t making the greatest mistake of his life.