Hello Stranger

My breath stayed hitched up tight as the universe pulled a blinder on me. An absolute slammer of a blinder.

Just like that, the man pulled out my pink bookmark from his novel.

“For you,” he said, and I swear I almost fainted.

Two simple words that had his voice sounding like velvet. As serious as the rest of him.

I looked from his outstretched hand to his face, over and over on loop as I truly grasped what was happening.

He had Granny Weobley’s bookmark, right there in his fingers.

My own fingers were jittery as they took it from him. They were bumbling fools, sending my train ticket fluttering to the floor as they reached for the prize.

That got a smirk from him. Just a slight dab of humour in the very corner of his mouth.

“You’ll be losing that thing in the same way, if you aren’t careful.”

I found my breath and my voice along with it. “I dropped the bookmark? On the floor?”

He nodded. “On the train yesterday. I tried to give it back to you, but you were off like a shot.”

I could feel my cheeks burning up, because I could imagine just how off like a shot I was. I must’ve been bouncing away from the platform in a flurry.

“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry, and thanks. Thanks so much.”

He flicked open his own book. “You’re very welcome, Chloe.”

I could feel my cheeks burning up brighter as I turned that tattered pink leather over in my hand.

His attention dropped down to his pages, and I should’ve put mine back to mine. Gone with the Wind was calling, and my heart was racing and needing some words to calm it down, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. I picked my ticket up from the floor and found my words.

“It was from my grandma,” I told the stranger. “The bookmark, I mean. She gave it to me when I was seven.”

He could have given me a token nod and an I don’t give a shit smile, but he didn’t. His eyes were every bit as dark and serious when they looked back into mine.

“Seven?”

I nodded with a grin. “Yeah. With a copy of Watership Down. Her favourite.”

“Good choice,” he said, and I nodded with my grin still bright.

“I still love the story. Still read it way too often.”

His paperback lay open on his lap, paused. “That’s the curse of the most powerful stories, isn’t it?” he said. “They never let you go.”

“Yes. It is.” My laugh sounded so young. Just like that seven-year-old girl with the book in her greedy fingers every night before bed.

His attention went back to his paperback and I tried to do the same, slotting my bookmark nice and tightly in my front cover before flicking back through to the right page.

But I couldn’t concentrate.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

I focused instead on the book in his hands, wondering just what he was reading. It was tattered. Not as tattered as mine, but definitely well read. And I couldn’t help myself, I just had to ask the question.

“What book are you reading?”

He seemed surprised by my question, but he answered it, holding up the book for me to see for myself.

“The Master and Margarita by –”

“Mikhail Bulgakov,” we said in unison, and I was nodding. My grin beaming even brighter.

“You’ve read it?” he asked.

“It’s one of my favourites. I love Behemoth, the big talking cat.”

“So do I,” he said, and his eyes stayed fixed on mine.

I summoned my finest voice and cleared my throat like a theatre star. “I beg pardon, my queen, he rasped. Would I ever allow myself to offer vodka to a lady?”

“This is pure alcohol,” the stranger finished for me.

His smile flashed for just a second, and it was such a contrast to his usual heaviness that I felt something deep from him, something that made no sense to me, not with the usual zing of a high that I feel every waking minute of the day.

A sadness.

I felt a sadness.

“Is it your favourite novel?” I asked him, and he shook his head.

“Is that yours?” he asked, gesturing to the novel in my hands.

I shook my head and held the cover up. “No.”

“Gone with the Wind,” he said. “Quite a classic. I saw you reading it yesterday.”

I blushed some more. “I like the old ones.”

“Me too,” he said.

We were both sitting there with open books on our laps, staring hard at each other as the train pulled into Eastworth. The bustle of people getting on made no difference, I couldn’t look away from him.

The shuffling passengers eased along, and I felt weird as we pulled away again, wondering how I’d feel if he upped and left right there and then without me even knowing his name.

But it didn’t seem like it would make any difference. Not to him. He wasn’t even looking in my direction. Not anymore.