Train Station

Doug sighed inwardly as he pulled up in his beat-up, run-down truck to the beat-up, run-down train station. “Why am I even here? Why would she ever come back for me?”, he thought. Her absence was tangible, the space that she had once occupied beside him a void that was gargantuan in comparison to the sun. He took a deep breath as he watched the train slowly make its way into the station, like a seafaring ship into port. As the throng of people exiting the train came into view, he habitually looked for Emma; his ex-girlfriend. The two had been inseparable until the day Emma got on a train and never came back, without even an explanation or note for Doug to hold on to to convince him that her departure was not his fault. The day after she left, and every subsequent day after, he comes to the train station searching for his long-lost love. Each day his hope dwindles a little more, like a flower slowly losing its petals.

 If Doug was the Beast of the two, then Emma was irrevocably the Belle. She was shy and more comfortable reading about conversations than partaking in them, not unlike Disney’s version of the poor-girl-turned-princess. She was also easy on the eyes, as Doug and the vast majority of the males in the town put it. That was saying something, since the town, with a population just shy of 5,000, had at least three males for every female. 

This day was different than all the others preceding it, though, because this was the day that Doug was finally going find out the real reason why Emma really left, not any of the wild guesses he had made that were so far out of the ballpark they were practically in the next town over. Doug’s thoughts were spiraling towards that fateful day when suddenly, out of the smoke spewing from the train came a mysterious figure clad in varying shades of blindingly bright pink and aquamarine. As the figure came closer, Doug recognized that it was Betty, the town’s most reliable source of gossip. “What’s up?”, she asked in greeting. “Nothing much,” Doug begrudgingly replied. “Oh come on, I’m sure something new is going on with you,” she said, furthering Doug’s suspicions that she was as addicted to gossip as a procrastinating college student is addicted to caffeinated beverages. Doug began to walk away, but stopped in his tracks when Betty said “I know what really happened to Emma, and I’m the only person that does, so you better come with me.” At this, Doug hurriedly pushed himself up off the wall and followed Betty’s retreating figure at breakneck speed. Betty’s car, a nondescript grey Toyota, was not what he would have expected the nosy, brazen woman to drive. Once they got onto the road, the fact that Betty was driving twenty miles over the speed limit made it obvious that whatever she had to tell him was of the utmost importance. “Ok,” Betty said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “We can talk now.” “Emma never got on that train like everyone thinks. She was pushed off a cliff by Charlie.” The ringing in Doug’s reached fever pitch. He didn’t know what to say, think, or feel. His father, the person that was always there for him, especially after Emma left, was the real reason behind her departure, and murdered her in cold blood? It was too much to process, so Doug said the only thing he could think of; “Why?” “I don’t know,” Betty replied, “But I’m really sorry, and you’re welcome to stay at my place for a while until this whole things blows over.” That comment was the cherry on top, the straw that finally broke the camel’s back of Doug’s patience. “Until this blows over!?, Doug exclaimed. “This thing you speak of is my girlfriend’s murder, and you should treat it as such. The one thing you can do to help me is let my out of this car, right now.” “All right,” Betty responded as she pulled over onto the side of the road and Doug hopped out. “I really do wish you the best dear!”, she called out to him. 

Doug didn’t respond as he put one foot in front of the other in a familiar direction. Just twelve short months ago, his life had been normal. He went to school like everyone else, got good grades, and had a great girlfriend. Now his world had been turned upside down, and replaced with heartbreak, lies, and murder. This realization made him feel like he was the lead in a spy movie, with one key difference. He didn’t reach the damsel in distress, Emma, in time to save her. 

Back at the train station where everything had started, Doug felt just as empty as before he found out the unfortunate nature of Emma’s departure from his world. He might as well have been invisible for the lack of acknowledgement that people gave him, even with tears streaming down his face. “Why did this have to happen?”, he thought. “She deserved a peaceful death at an old age, not the pain she had to go through.” With this thought, he walked out to his truck, put his keys in the ignition, and began the short drive to the infamous cliff where Emma fell to her death. Once he arrived at his destination, he walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down hundreds of feet  to the very bottom. Standing precariously on the line between life and death with the intent of jumping, Doug recalled Emma and her steadfast companionship, and made the decision to walk back to his car and head home.