As her train approached, she took a deep breath and readied her smile. A few months ago, a colleague of hers discovered that they both lived along the same train line. He soon became another of her constants on her morning commute, but instead of blank stares and averted gazes, he always greeted her with a smile and a nod as he said hello. She always returned the gesture. 

But, this morning, he was not there.

She walked down the carriage, discreetly searching the crowd for him. They always met in this carriage — it’d be too hard to find each other otherwise. But among the suits, the ironed shirts and horn-rimmed glasses, she could not find him. She considered moving to the next carriage to look for him, but the train was always much too crowded.

She sighed and pulled out her phone to send him a message, asking if he’d missed the train this morning.

In truth, there was a part of her that was relieved to not see him and to have been unable to find him. She put her phone away. Sometimes the company of others became suffocating to her; she grew claustrophobic. She needed regular bouts of solitude to reset her mind and her emotions. Although the train barely had enough breathing space, she didn’t feel claustrophobic at all.

Eventually, the train emerged into the downpour outside. The rain seemed to be making the clouds angrier and darker, as if each droplet were a spark fallen from a lantern deep within. Yet, the angrier and darker they became, the more sparks they lost. The world outside became a grey haze.

Rainy days always put her in a pensive mood. It was as if the world outside was reflecting her world within, inviting it to spill out and flow over the earth like a river breaching its banks. She always perceived an ironic safety in the sensory maelstrom created by wild weather.

A flash of lightning split the sky in two. It aroused murmurs of fear and excitement amongst those who witnessed it. A distant grumble of thunder followed a moment later, as if in response to the passengers’ quiet exclamations. She smiled at the sound. Deep within her, her soul answered with a low growl, a contented purr. The train once again submerged into the underground.

She looked over her shoulder at the opposite platform as an outbound train arrived. The passengers all had their heads bowed as if in prayer — prayer to their phones, e-readers and other gadgets, and, perhaps, also to books.

A neat grey coat caught her attention. A memory returned to her like a beacon emerging through fog.

No, she told herself, it couldn’t be him. The man she knew didn’t live here. 

He looked up as the train pulled away — maybe he had felt her gaze on him — and she saw with certainty that he wasn’t the man she knew. The grey coat from her memory belonged to a man with dark, almost black eyes. He was a man from her hometown.

She had a theory that those who appear happiest and most cheerful to those around them also often held the greatest sadness deep within them. She told him this theory. He looked at her quizzically but there was also something defensive in his eyes. They were at a cafe — the third date. She inhaled, exhaled, waiting for him to respond, wishing she hadn’t mentioned her theory.

He chuckled, picked up his coffee and took a sip. She relaxed.

They first met through a chain of mutual friends at a New Year’s Eve event. She already knew his story: full of alcoholism, failed suicide attempts and, lastly, reformation. At least, that’s what she’d been told.

Even then, his attire had been monochromatic. Grey was his colour of choice, he claimed, because he was too bashful to wear reds and greens and yellows. He couldn’t stand standing out. If he wore a coloured shirt, it was often accompanied by a grey coat.

He asked her if she already knew of his tumultuous past — if she’d heard all the rumours. It wasn’t so much a question as an assumption confirmed by the sympathy in her eyes. He told her the rumours were true. If they were the same rumours he’d heard, they were true. He smiled, and in his wry smile, and in his dark eyes, she saw not a kindred spirit but a kindred soul.

Conversation flowed easily, fluidly between them. She told him things that she’d never told anyone else before. They gave each other comfort, reassurance, compassion and understanding. The connection was undeniable. He held her hand and told her that he’d never let her go. She squeezed his hand in return, both believing it to be the only truth, and fearing that it was the one promise he could never keep.

Eventually, however, he began to fall. He relapsed. It started with a drink, followed by a lie — a lie as much to himself as it was to her. But he did not let her go. And she did not let him go; she tried to pull him back up.

Their relationship became as a leaf blown about by the wind — at once uplifted, soaring, and then suddenly spiralling downward, only to be buoyed again by a fresh current. Still, even as the highs and lows became more unpredictable and uncontrollable, they held on to each other.

But his grip was weakening. She could feel him slipping away.

One night, he told her that he needed space. He got in his car and drove away. She didn’t see him again until the next morning — on the morning news report: three dead, one critically injured in a tragic head-on collision.

She watched the outbound train depart and disappear into the tunnel. He didn’t live here — he didn’t live in this world anymore — but the memory of him still stung her eyes and made her breath catch in her throat.

Her devastation reminded her that she was human, that she was alive. She wished he could have held on.

He had been one of her constants. They’d met down at the opposite end of the platform, waiting for that 7:20 train. He always wore a long-sleeved dress shirt, even in those warmer months, and carried a dark brown, leather satchel. Sometimes he had coffee, sometimes not. Sometimes he wore a tie — plain and unpretentious — but often he went without. His posture gave the impression of confidence and self-assuredness, but there was something relaxed and casual about him. But these weren’t what caught her attention, what drew her to him. 

He was always reading. His eyes were always roving back and forth across page after page of classic and contemporary literature, glancing up only as the train approached. He would close his book and look about him, as if awaking from a dream, only long enough to board the train and take a seat. She could not decide if his eyes were green or grey — probably a vacillating mixture of both — but there was something in them that was soft, gentle, inviting, and they drew her in.

She, herself, always carried a book with her, but often preferred to watch the world around her, as constant as it was, and only read at her office cubicle during lunch breaks, or in bed at night. That summer, she was new — to the office, and to the city — and she was caught somewhere closer to fear than daring. She did not seek out the company of others.

Eventually, she could not bear the sight of him — she could not bear the yearning that he incited — but, rather than look away or move to another part of the platform, which would have been the logical thing to do, she pulled out her own book and turned her attention to its pages. She lost herself in other worlds and, more than once, almost missed that 7:20 train because she did not resurface in time.

One such morning, a Thursday at the end of summer, she arrived early at the station. Long before any of her constants had taken their seats on the benches that lined the platform, she was immersed in her novel. All light and sound, and time itself became immaterial.

Then, suddenly, she felt the warm touch of a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, and the hand was gone. She looked up. It was him.

She thought he’d said something: his lips moved. She stuttered out an apology, feeling as if everything were underwater. He smiled — a smile of effortless charisma — and gestured to the approaching train. He had noticed yesterday, as he took his seat on the train, that she hadn’t boarded; she had noticed too late, as the train closed its doors, readying to depart. She felt her face flush — partly from embarrassment, partly from the thought that he’d noticed her at all.

Later, alone, she would replay that moment — his words, his voice, his smile — over and over in her mind. And always those eyes that made her heart flutter. If they were captivating from afar, they were now all-consuming.

After that Thursday morning, he stopped reading. She continued to arrive early at the station. They started talking. From when they met at the station until she disembarked (he alighted at a stop further along), they talked, laughed and exchanged knowing glances.

Eventually, they met outside of the confines of the cement platform and the steel carriages. They ate together, walked together, and laughed together. They held hands. He held her and brought her closer. They shared stories, memories and dreams. The green of his eyes grew more intense, and she felt as if she were falling upwards into an endless canopy.

Her spirit was reignited. She felt as if her soul was lighter and yet full to bursting. She called home, and, in hushed conversations, told old friends of this man who made her feel like she could love this city just because he was in it.

But these feelings did not last very long.

Her mind grew suspicious. The anxiety inside her that feared all good things found its voice. At first, it was a whisper, a hiss. The voice questioned everything about him — his intentions, his honesty, his faithfulness. The fear became a quivering crescendo. She questioned herself and her own worthiness, and the very idea of reality.

She pulled away from him. Dazed and confused, yet also resigned to this end, he watched her leave. She resurfaced to where she could hear waves crashing against the shore, and where she could hear the shrill cry of seabirds. She breathed in deep lungfuls of air.

She could never love someone who was perfect.

Initially, there was always a basic, primal attraction. She liked people for positive attributes: their beauty, wit, humour; a twinkle in their eye, the sharp line of their jaw, the resonance of their laugh.

Ultimately, however, she loved people for their quirks and their flaws. She loved people for their vulnerability and for what they could do to her — the more devastating the better. She could never love someone who was perfect, complete, unbroken.

Standing on the platform — toward the end where the light flickered occasionally — waiting for her train, she glanced at the people around her. Many of them were constants — they were her 7:20 group, creatures of habit. They were aware of each other, but there was never any outward acknowledgement between them — never so much as a smile or a nod was exchanged on that platform. At most, they sent each other cursory glances.

An icy draught carried the scent of morning rain and cut grass through the station. She pulled her coat closer around her and closed her eyes, imagining, willing the breeze to take her away, to scatter her into a million pieces like a dandelion blown away for a wish.

When it passed, she let out a sigh and opened her eyes. She was still here.