I’m waiting for a train downtown, still high from getting the bookstore job hours ago when it finally happens again. I’m so blissful and sated that I almost miss the fire feeling creeping into my chest. I catch the last tendrils of it as it drifts away from me, and look up, anxiously trying to identify where it’s originating. An empty train screeches through the station, never stopping, blowing strands of hair into my face in its wake. It’s long after the day’s rush and my platform is almost empty. All that remains is a girl with an iPod sitting on a bench far away, a man with a suitcase exiting through a turnstile, and a kid with a hoodie furiously clicking away on his phone.
On the platform across the tracks there are only three people, all of them on their own, seeming sleepy-eyed and dreamy, moving almost in slow motion. Except for the rumbling of the tunnels, all is quiet. I’ve just started to wonder if my senses have gotten things wrong, when a man on the platform across from me enters the station and jumps the turnstile. He runs full tilt toward one of the tunnels. He has a dark gun in his hand – it looks like a shadow, a deadly shadow. He moves like the devil is chasing him but I see nobody in pursuit. I step forward, narrowing my eyes, watching closely and intending to cross the tracks, but a train enters and buzzes through the station – all light and air and rattling glass. Through the windows of the train passing by I’m able to make out the gunman pushing a young man as he disappears into the tunnel. I gasp audibly as the young man falls onto the tracks. He doesn’t get up and nobody appears to have seen him fall but me.
None of this would be the end of the world except that a new train is entering the station and it’s headed right for him. My mind races and my heart clenches at the thought of not getting there in time.
The moment the train on my tracks passes I dart across the massive gap, leaping over the rails between us. I heave him back onto the platform just as the oncoming train breathes a whooshing hot whisper on the back of my neck. I sit silently for a minute, entangled with the stranger, his head somehow lying peacefully in my lap as if he’s napping. He’s young, only a couple years older than me, maybe, and handsome. His glasses have partially fallen off his face and I adjust them, wishing he’d open his eyes so I could find out what color they are. I catch myself tenderly brushing a dark curl of hair from his brow.
And for the first time in my whole life I really think about love.
What it might be like to be in love.
In love with a boy like this.
My heart flutters around like trapped birds in a cage and my skin flushes hot, thinking things I’ve never thought before. I’m tempted to fish out his wallet so I can know his name. So I can put a name to this sudden new dream of mine. But I resist. His eyes blink open and closed a few times before they settle on open and I draw in a sharp breath. They’re dark brown with tiny flecks of green. They’re beautiful. But it’s not just that they’re beautiful, it’s that they’re also soft and kind. So many people feel all hard angled edges and cynicism to me. But mostly what I see in his eyes is gentleness. It’s intoxicating and horribly unique.
“Wha – what happened?” he asks.
“You got pushed onto the tracks,” I say, savoring the sound of his rough voice, hoping he’ll speak to me again.
“Am I okay?” he asks. I chuckle.
“I think so,” I say. “You look okay,” I add helpfully, shrugging a bit. He smiles broadly despite the obvious confusion I see in his eyes.
“Good,” he says authoritatively, nodding slightly, but the confusion overtakes him and he stumbles on his words again. “Who…who’re you?” he asks, one eyebrow slightly cocked. He smells like the woods. I don’t know how that’s possible in the city, and worse, in this dank subway tunnel, but it’s true. He smells woodsy and fresh. He smells like life. The urge to take credit for saving him is powerful. I want it so much I can taste it on my tongue, as if saving him will help me know him better, or him to know me. I resist again.
“I’m nobody,” I say. His eyes focus on me for one second before glossing over.
“You’re pretty…” he says, and then passes out. It’s the first time anyone has ever called me pretty before. It’s embarrassing how happy it makes me. I shake him lightly, worrying he has a concussion and should be awake. I stand up, lifting him, my arms under his shoulders and the backs of his knees, intending to take him to the hospital, but just as I step forward I see a bystander pointing my way and police rushing through and over the turnstiles. I set him down carefully and dash into the dark tunnels behind me. The irony that it’s the same path the gunman took is not lost on me. There’s some shouting and some pursuit, but I speed through the tunnels until I can’t hear them anymore, trying to forget the whole thing.