Hello Stranger

She gestured up at the bucket list, and took a deep breath of oxygen.

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.

“I want to see the sea,” she told me. “I want to hear the waves and taste the salt in the air.”

I nodded. “We can do that.”

She smiled her devilish smile. “Let’s do the bloody crossword first.”

I was already picking up the paper.

We worked through the clues and talked about my day, and Mum recounted some family memory of Auntie Jennie down at Weston beach one summer that had her cackling and had me laughing along. She asked me how I was feeling and I shrugged her off with a good, even though my legs were still aching and my chest was tight.

I got her meds down from the shelf, and helped her take them. I got her hot water bottle and snuggled her under the duvet, and settled her down for her sleep.

And I watched her.

I watched her suck in breaths through her mask and sink deep into the night, before trying to sink down deep into my own.

I put Master back on the bookshelf and pulled out my copy of Mythago Wood. It’d been a long, long time since I’d read that one. Getting caught up in the words was easier than I expected. The life on the pages made it a breeze. But there was more to it than the novel, and I knew it. It may have been a woodland fantasy tale, but even Mythago Wood had more rationale about it than the matter darting through my mind.

It was Chloe I was picturing in the labyrinth of trees in Ryhope, and it was myself I pictured running there too.

It captured me.

She captured me.

The girl on the train was a splash of brightness in my wilderness. A zany flash of colour in the grey.

It made no sense.

I didn’t want it to.

Throughout every aspect of my life I’d always been clear on what I wanted – I craved order, and discipline and the steel of rationale. But there was none there for me tonight.

I fell asleep in my reading chair, under the lamp’s warm amber glow, and I slept well.

I slept well and I dreamt of primal woodland, and Stephen Huxley in the trees, and Chloe flicking the pages of Mythago Wood. Just like me.

And then the next morning I took the action that needed taking, for my poor dying mother upstairs.10ChloeSweater zipped up high on a cloudy morning. The wind was a shiver and my breaths were hot.

Late.

I was late again.

I launched myself onto Eddington platform, my hair a bounce of a mess in its ponytail, crazy relieved to find the train waiting. Phew.

Thank you, universe, for saving my ass again.

Liam hadn’t been happy with me last night. He’d cursed about my stupid books and said I should suck his dick before bed, but I hadn’t done. Liam’s dick could go suck itself, I wanted Mythago Wood.

Right now, I wanted something else, though. It wasn’t the wind that had me in a shiver as I headed up the carriage.

My heart was pounding, and my mouth was dry, and my stomach was a churn of wanting a man I didn’t know.

And there he was.

The stranger.

Sitting there as calmly as ever with a paperback open on his lap. Today he was wearing a grey suit – a really nice one. His tie was navy blue and it suited him, but I suspected every single colour under the sun would.

My breaths were still hot when I sat down opposite him. I was grinning way wider than I should. Awkward. But a nice awkward.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello,” he said right back.

Hello. Hello, stranger. Hello.

I wondered all over again where he was going and what his name was. I wished I had the confidence to ask. But what would I say and why? And what would I ask him next?

Stupid. The whole thing was stupid.

I felt like a teenager with a crush on a teacher, all giggly and goofy opposite the guy who made me gooey. Because that’s what this was, right? A crush.

I’d been thinking about that man in ways that I shouldn’t – not with a pissed off boyfriend in bed next to me. I shouldn’t have slipped my hand down under the covers and circled my fingers in just the right spot. I shouldn’t have held my breath when I reached that rush, just to stop Liam from waking up and rolling over on top. But I did.

I did think about the stranger last night.

I thought about his salt and pepper hair, and the dark pattern of his beard. I thought about his voice, deep chocolate satin, and the way his eyes had a shimmer of steel.

I thought about his fingers flicking the pages.