Annie

Ania "took" Jessie unexpectedly and without objections. Besides that, the train was fast and the car was relaxing.

Jessie took the weighty glossy magazine, believing that the road would be rather boring, and she was able to plunge into reading about others’ luxury lives. But not at this time.

Promptly approaching changes of surroundings demanded to change her publicist maintenance. Everything categorically had to be another: sharp to gripes. Revision of the general purpose, addictions, and habits changed the glossy magazine also: sincere Conde Nast Traveller was held to her armpit.

"Who makes these magazines such heavy?" – she thought.

"Why is everything so heavy?" – responded Chester Bennington in her headphones.

– I'm Ania, – said a nice girl near Jessie.

Jessie turned off the player. But lovely music continued to play in Jessie's head. Jessie has understood that it is not necessary to wish bigger. Jessie has recognized her. Jessie knew her even earlier. It is difficult to explain this feeling: it appears from nowhere and doesn't release any more.

"Not to miss. Not to offend. Not to frighten off..." – Jessie whispered.

Ania has seemed to Jessie such native at once that she hardly restrained – Jessie wanted to touch her so. The magnet of the size of a vinyl record "has grown" in a stomach for some seconds and Jessie has ceased to resist.

Ania looked as she just went beyond a threshold of Cambridge International School: red hair is collected in a tail and drawn by a tape (!) in the form of a bow, gray with marsh streaks eyes, the challenge in the blouse buttoned on all buttons. Jessie's not going to strike anybody and was by herself. There was a bun on her head and paint spots on her skirt.

They have passed a half way silently. Quailed, probably. Jessie precisely. But they knew for certain that this train carries not just Annie (the young Lithuanian) and Jessie (the young Serbian), but them: nonrandom fellow travelers. Inevitably connected by this road.

Jessie totally forgot about what they had talked about. She only remembered that they went up and down the car, breathing someone else's smoke in the corridor, ran to the conductor to ask for tea, but did not touch it. But they were touching each other. And they saw themselves in many years. The same of course. Annie dreamed about children and infected Jessie. Jessie dreamed about freedom, but Annie did not want to concede.

– Two loneliness have met, – the neighbor in a compartment summarized.

It was so. Yes, it was so

At the station Jessie was met by polite taxi drivers, Annie – by someone with a bouquet of flowers. In the vanity of the platform they, of course, have lost each other. But haven't puzzled.

Ania is fourteen now. Her face wrinkles, there are a lot of streaks of gray in his hair, her look is mature. Her wings are frayed, her vanity is citified. She doesn't travel by train anymore. And Jessie doesn't carry useless magazines with herself. And if Jessie 's driving, Ania quietly snorting nearby. And this is happiness.