Part 3 -- Reflecting
We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.
- Anais Nin
*****
"So you're all set?" he casually asked as we stood at the entrance to Blackheath Station.
Snubbing his gaze, I scanned the electronic display for the next Brighton-bound train: Platform two/fifteen minutes.
Stepping away, I answered with pretend assurance. "Yes, I'm fine. Had a lovely time. Thanks for driving me to the station."
"Of course."
Trying unsuccessfully to avoid eye contact, I struggled for something else to say. I knew about good manners but never anticipated this particular situation. "It was nice to meet you," I added, managing an unconvincing smile.
"Same here."
On some level, he knew I found eye contact vexing. An hour ago, I had drawn him down to me, had kissed him so I could shut my eyes against his steady gaze.
Intimacy, I reminded myself, was not part of the bargain, so now, like then, I diverted my attention, this time, by looking away.
It was late, and things had gone well beyond enough. I found his need for this final familiarity hypocritical, as it was not likely we would see each other again. I wanted to escape, to have time to piece together what had happened during the most surreal afternoon of my life.
I did not live this way, at least not until now. Yet, here I was, politely acting as if the afternoon's fucking had not happened. My confused feelings were getting the better of me, and I wanted him to leave.
"Well then," he said, plainly wanting to hurry things along. "I'll let you go. We should do this again sometime." He leaned toward me, and I accepted his kiss with a civil chill, his stubble scratching my sensitive skin one last time.
"Sure," I replied, "give me a call." The second I said it, I wished I hadn't. He would not call, would he?
My overly hasty exit from his bed made it doubtful, and I was convinced he viewed me as a complete bitch. I was not sure I cared, however. I had gotten what I came here for, and so had he. Stepping onto the escalator and thinking I would wave, I cautiously glanced back. He had gone; it was over.
Ten minutes later, just another solitary passenger, I listened as the big machine rumbled noisily through the darkness, its squealing wheels churning as it negotiated curves along the way back to Brighton, the end of a day of emptiness, one I had created.
I saw the journey as a time to spread out the pieces of the day's grand puzzle, to lend form to the picture, to reflect.
It was late evening, and I sat the way people sit on trains, my upper body rocking in disharmony to the carriage's tedious swaying motion. Like everybody else, I evaded eye contact with everybody else. Instead, I stared out the window, which I did not like as it made me feel like everybody else.
While everybody else read their phones, my gaze fixed on the opposite window. Unlike everybody else, I thought back to a peculiar afternoon whose schematic I had meticulously orchestrated in days recently past.
The carriage's interior lights shone brightly, blinking from time to time and making it hard to see out. I glimpsed nameless villages whose ghostly snow-covered profiles appeared fleetingly in outline against the blackness of the night.
Thinking back, I smiled at how flawlessly my plan worked. In two weeks, I searched, found, met, fucked and, left a man whose name I had not said aloud. It was so simple, and now I would ride off into the night, back home to solitude and a scorching shower to wash him away like Original Sin.
However, with the passing miles, my lustrous marble surfaces, polished and gleaming with self-confidence at the start, began to crack. Simmering doubts crept into me, and I feared all might not be as black and white as I hoped.
To complicate matters, I was tired. Clutching my now half-empty Diet Coke bottle and not wanting to think more, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window. Instantly, I felt her presence, my instant thought, 'Can't she just this once, leave me alone?'
Through the better part of today, I endured a strange man's weight and power. Free now, and with room to breathe, I will deal with Mira, my conscience and grand inquisitor—Mira, who lives rent-free in my head. She is the last thing I need, but she is here, watching me from the opposite window.
Displaying fangs of defiance, I hissed at her: "I won't be intimidated, Mira."
My plan had worked perfectly, had it not? What could she say? Steeling myself, I lazily opened my eyes, blinking in the bright light as her hazy form took shape in the window on the other side of the aisle. Rarely had she appeared so intense.
I stared back at her but knew it was futile. My vain attempt to make her uneasy had zero effect. We locked eyes; I was in for the worst. Gawking, she blinked when I blinked, frowned when I frowned, looked askance when I looked askance.
