Hello Stranger

We’d had this conversation a thousand times. I repeated what I’d said a thousand times.

“If you don’t go anywhere until I settle myself down with someone, you’ll be around a long time yet.” I leaned in to kiss her forehead. “And Amy isn’t a great fit, she’s just a pretty girl.”

“It’s a good place to start,” she laughed, and I managed a chuckle along with her.

I helped her back on with her oxygen mask, making sure it was sound and snug to get her through the night.

“Sweet dreams,” I said, and I truly meant it.

“See you in the morning, sweetheart,” she said with a thumbs-up, and I hoped she meant it too.

Her eyes were already closed when I stood up to leave. She looked a tiny thing in bed, fading just a little every night. The final petals were dropping away from the whitest rose, pale and moonlit as the oxygen kept on chugging into her lungs. Mechanical and persistent.

She was lying about how fine she was feeling, and I knew it. I felt it. Her chest was rasping, and her ankles were swollen, and jabs of morphine kept her comfortable enough to speak but little else.

She still had her bucket list pinned up on the wall, scrawled in her finest handwriting.

I read it through over again and got a fresh pang. Time was running out.

Meet an elephant.

Climb a mountain.

Ride the back of a motorcycle around a sharp corner.

Put my toes in the sea.

Get a daughter-in-law.

One thing’s for sure, it wouldn’t ever be Amy. I shook my head to myself with a smirk as I turned off the light and closed Mum’s bedroom door behind me. The girl should count her blessings on that one. Lucky escape.

My room was quiet when I stepped inside, bed made up neat, just like usual.

I had a shower and went about my bedtime routine, then struggled to sleep. Just like usual.

Mum always enjoyed going to sleep at night. Her dreams were escapes when they came for her. Happy times gone by, or fairy tales of being a kid all over again, playing sandcastles with her mum and dad on a beach on the south coast.

I wished that sleep state were hereditary – but no. Dreams were never sweet for me, and never had been.

My dreams were about death and having no power over it. They were about spending most of my waking life trying to fend it off for people and watching my closest person alive decay in front of me, one tiny little piece at a time.

Only this time, for once in my life, the dreams that came for me weren’t savage.

They were of a freckled face, a mousy-haired shimmer, and a tatty pink bookmark.4ChloeCrap, crap, crap.

Another frantic morning getting to the train station before the train pulled away from the platform. I was tugging shoes onto feet still sore from the day before and scooping my hair up into a pony before dashing off down the street like a sprinter. I was still pulling my sweater on as I ran.

Idiot. Snoozing through the alarm like an idiot.

Stupid on my part, but the universe was feeling kind today.

I bundled myself on the train and flung myself into the nearest seat, catching my breath as the whistle sounded out. Phew. On time. Just.

My novel was still tight under my arm when the train pulled away from Eddington. I was about to flick it open and start reading when the tall figure of a man moved towards me up the aisle.

I dug straight through my bag for my train ticket, assuming him to be a conductor, but no. The figure dropped himself down in the seat opposite me, his knees stretching out towards mine.

It was when I looked across at him and my eyes landed on his that my breath caught in my throat. It couldn’t not.

That man was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

For real. There and then, on that train carriage, before eight o’clock on a random work morning, that man was the beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

His shoulders were broad and suited. His tie was neat and burgundy, classic against a bright white shirt. But it was his face – eyes dark and serious, brooding with more depth than I’d ever known. His jaw was steady, and serious to match. His beard was neat and severe. His eyebrows were wise. Perfect.

His cheekbones were defined. His hair had a dusting of salt and pepper, just enough to make him look refined.

I couldn’t stop staring at him, holding my train ticket outstretched in my hand like some kind of idiot as he pulled out a book from his briefcase – a paperback with a bazillion down folded corners, the biggest pet hate of my life. But with him it didn’t seem to matter. Every single page could have been folded down, I wouldn’t have cared.