The Ride Home

The walk to the train station was taking longer than Terry had anticipated. His legs felt heavy, and he couldn't shake the feeling there was one more thing he needed to do before he left. This happened the year before, and the year before that, and now that it had fully set in this time, he tried to run through the possible things he could have forgotten. It was an exercise in futility. The apartment had been cleaned thoroughly, the keys were in the mailbox, and he had retrieved the security deposit back the night before. He checked his pockets for his tickets, and of course they were there. Everything was in its place. Terry knew this, but he always trusted his instincts. Even when they proved wrong.

His instincts were just about the only thing driving him forward. His gut was swimming in response to the frantic pace of his thoughts. He forced himself to move his legs despite their resistance. He knew he had to be there to meet her. There were only two more blocks to go. The neighborhood surrounding this simple little station was always quiet, and Terry searched for anything to distract him from his thoughts to no avail. He still couldn't believe she was coming with him. This would be the first time since they were freshmen that they would be in the same location together willingly without either of them being drunk.

Samantha had known of Terry when they were in the same high school back home. It was a big school, and they never ran into each other, but people talked, and they certainly talked a lot more when you stood out like Terry did. He wore dirty clothes and looked unkempt almost all of the time. Attendance for Terry was sporadic, which led to classmates coming up with wild theories on where he could possibly be. Usually, it was something along the lines of drugs or jail or lying unconscious in some bad part of town where somebody reported seeing him on their way to school. The rumor mill was interesting to Samantha and the one class she had with him he never showed, so she heard quite a few before she graduated.

Samantha had later learned that the class she had with him was after the incident.

According to local legend, outside the school at the end of the day, when everyone was getting picked up or walking to their bus, Terry's dad had rolled up onto the sidewalk with their family car. His father was a known drunk who was banned from almost every local liquor spot except the big corporate store, and this was apparently the worst he had ever been. The way it went when most people told the story, was that Terry's dad had pulled out a gun after exiting the car. Terry had been walking up to the car, seemingly unaware of his father's intent on shooting him. Luckily, he had been close enough to the man when it all happened. Some people say he grabbed the pistol first, but a lot of folks had a hard time believing that a high school kid could have grabbed a gun with one hand and knocked a man out with the other. However, regardless of whether he grabbed the gun or not, no shot was fired, and Terry's dad folded in half before he slumped to the ground. One boy she knew, who always made sure he told everyone he was there when the story was brought up, described it as though Terry had punched the man so hard he somersaulted. It was a hell of a story, and was just about the last time anyone had seen Terry before graduation. Somehow, he managed to do it despite never being at school. She later learned from Terry that some very thankful staff members who had been on bus duty that day had found out where he was working shortly before graduation. One day they showed up and invited him to the ceremony, insisting he had a diploma waiting for him.

He never knew how they did it, but he took the opportunity to start looking into colleges and found himself at the same one as Samantha later that year. They ended up having the same class in the second semester. It took her a little while to realize it was the same Terry sitting a few rows in front of her. He had become a completely different person in college. Clean-shaven, consistent haircuts, and an attention to detail that seemed to possess him. He could focus in class like there was nobody else around and had perfect attendance. Eventually they were assigned to a group together for some project and they hit it off very quickly. Things moved too fast however, and despite his incredible attention to detail he seemed ignorant to every one of her wants and needs. The ending was rough for both of them. Samantha couldn't help but think about this all as she sat at the train station.

Terry rounded the corner where the stair to the platform was. They were daunting for whatever reason. There was a natural inhibition rising up in him. Warmth was only here at the bottom of these steps. Up there on the platform it was freezing. He felt it in every fiber of his being. It was suddenly time to leave. For whatever reason, his instincts from earlier bubbled up and he took a step. Everything got colder. He was right, it was time to leave. But he continued onwards anyways. Step by step. Until he was at the top at the time he was supposed to be there with legs made of stone and a stomach that felt like it was screaming.

Nobody was there. He noticed that quickly. The platform was empty. Maybe the time was wrong, but he knew it wasn't. He sat down and gave his heavy legs a break. That stomach feeling dissipated slowly, but by the time the train arrived he felt strange.

Terry realized he was relieved. He took his seat and exhaled a sigh of pure exhilarating relief. He was trying to find a reason to be frustrated but it didn't come. He was the one that asked her to come back home with him for the summer, truly, although they had acted like it was a thing they had arrived on naturally, together. But that was two weeks ago, after a drunken night out with their combined euphoria bouncing around the room. Sitting there alone in the sober reality of that train car, he realized it would've been a lousy time if she had been waiting there for him. They had already run out of things to talk about by the end of that night. All the momentum was funneled into coming to terms with their agreement to travel home together. Terry should've known then, but his instincts had something else in mind. Terry always listened to his instincts, and he was more than glad he'd known a girl that listened to her's too.