Runaways

I board the busy train, a small beige bag in tow. I take one last look behind me, half-expecting to see someone running after me. I see a mother, trying to quiet her screaming toddler; a group of teenage boys in soccer jerseys, yelling and tossing a ball between them; a boy, probably the same age as me, pacing back and forth. The boy is handsome, in a young, boyish way. In another life, maybe I would have approached him, said hello, smiled. Maybe he would have smiled back. Maybe we would have fallen in love.

But this isn’t a love story. Not in the way you might like it to be, anyways. So I turn and board the train. I don’t look back until the train station is behind me. 

“How old are you? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

I turn towards the voice. The man is maybe 50 years old, with grey peppered hair and a wary, tired expression. He’s holding a newspaper in one hand and a worn leather briefcase in the other. He looks like a “Jerry”. No, a “Jared” maybe. Yes, Jared. 54 years old, with two kids – a boy and a girl, born just a year apart – and a pretty wife. His wife happily watches the kids at home while he takes the train to and from the city, where he works as a professor – no, an accountant.

I realize he’s waiting for me to say something.

I smile. “I’m taking the train to the city to visit a friend”. The man shakes his head and goes back to his newspaper. I find an empty seat on the train and sit down.

The train starts to move. I used to love taking the train to the city. We both did (me and Charlotte, that is. But I’ll get to that part of the story). Sometimes we would look around and imagine each person’s life – where they were coming from, where they were going.

I haven’t taken the train in a long time. Not since Charlotte passed.

“Passed”. I hate that word. I’ve heard that word a lot in my life: first, when my mom had gotten sick and died. A few years later, it was Charlotte. Ironically, it was the same rare form of cancer that took them both from me. Perhaps ironically is not the best word. Tragically. Poetically. Cruelly.

I wonder, why do people not just use the word “die?” Is it fear? It’s the truth, is it not? “I’m so sorry to hear she passed away”, people say. As if to mean, “no, don’t worry, people don’t die. They just pass”. Much gentler, much less final. As if they could be back any day. As if they weren’t really gone.

They were, though. I knew that much.

Born at the same hospital, on the same day, it was as if the universe had pushed me and Charlotte together. When my mother had passed away – no, not passed away, died – Charlotte had declared us sisters. “So, you see, now you do have a mom”, she had explained (even at 12 years old, her reasoning was difficult to argue against). It wasn’t long until I lost my dad too – not to death, but to something more virulent. “He drinks because it hurts too much not to”, Charlotte’s mom had explained to me one particularly bad night.

It was around that time that Charlotte and I started playing our game – Runaways. The rules were simple: we would skip school, take the train into the city, and become other people (I know what you’re thinking – but who are you to question the rules of the game?) Sometimes we would imagine we were literature majors starting college in the city together – we would later go on to become famous writers, of course. Sometimes we studied science – we were going to go on and become doctors, you see. Sometimes we were lawyers, who wore glasses and suits and read books with long words. The two of us would spend hours in the park in the city, taking turns reading out loud and watching people coming and going. While we were playing our game, it didn’t matter that my mom was dead, or my dad was drunk. After all, that wasn’t my life. We were Runaways. We were whoever we wanted to be.

When Charlotte got sick, we stopped playing our game. Slowly, hospital visits turned into hospital stays. Discussions between Charlotte’s parents and the doctors became more hushed. Conversations shifted from "treatment" to "comfort".

“Promise me we’ll be Runaways again when this is over”, Charlotte asked me one night, a few months before she died. Under the hospital’s steady florescent lights, I nodded. “I promise”. We both knew what she meant. While neither of us said it out loud, the truth hung heavy in the air between us, unspoken but palpable.

You already know what happened next. Like my mom, Charlotte was alive one moment and gone the next. I’m not going to pretend her death was beautiful or poetic because it wasn’t. The last few weeks were ugly, full of painkillers and tears, platitudes ("she’ll be in a better place, you see") and red eyes ("no, not crying, just tired").

Runaway. It doesn’t have the same ring to it.

The train comes to a halt, and I realize we’ve arrived. I grab my bag and follow the passengers outside, all impatiently exiting the train. I look around the train station, bustling with people, all rushing to get to their various destinations. I see an older man greeting a child, who jumps excitedly into his arms; a boy in a high school uniform, scrolling through his phone absentmindedly; a girl who looks no older than me, grinning and waving to someone ahead.

I feel Charlotte in the wind, brisk against my cheek; in the first few drops of rain beginning to fall, signalling the end of summer. I stop for a moment, taking it all in.

I can’t stop for long, though. After all, I’m still playing the game. I know the rules.