comprehension

fiction

A boy and a girl walked up the stairs of a station. It was eleven and the sunlight was coarse, mitigated by an occasional draft of wind.

They walked alongside each other, half a foot apart, backpacks slung behind. She lagged behind him by half a step so he could lead the way, before she realized he was simply strolling back and forth along the platform. He was on the phone. She eyed him carefully, trying to make out the contents of his conversation. His lean frame thinned in the sunlight as he walked away from her.

The girl headed for the empty bench and sat down. Propping up her legs, she turned away from the stairs leading out the station, away from the boy, and put in her earbuds. Away from the stairs, you couldn’t see where the train rails ended.

The boy set down his bag next to the girl’s, an inch apart. His shirt was gray like his backpack, a little careless and a little worn. He paced back and forth along the platform of the station. He was on the phone.

There was no one else on their side. The girl looked across at the rails, at the chasm that separated her from the other side. That side was full of people. She shielded her eyes from the glaring sunlight and furrowed her brow.

They stood there until the train trucked its way into the station. Picking up her bag, the girl headed toward an open door of the train. The boy was entering another door. He beckoned her to follow. She hesitated before walking towards the other door, but followed him into the train. They sat down beside each other.

The girl watched the trees and ponds through the window. The boy had hung up but was now playing on his phone. She glanced at his phone and made a face. She began to focus her attention on the green outside, the blue that she could see over the fields in the distance. It was pretty in a jarring way, how the concrete shifted into cornfields.

“Are we heading in the right direction?” The girl turned her head slightly toward the boy.

“It wasn’t the other direction so it has to be this one.” The boy didn’t look up. The girl crossed her legs and slunk back into her seat. “We’re so late,” she sighed.

“Why do you still care? It doesn’t even matter.” The boy didn’t care. “We should just head home.”

“You don't want to go anymore?”

“It’s not worth it. They don't even care; why should we?” He didn’t look away from his phone.

“I care.” The girl stared perplexedly at her boots that were stained from the six am rain.

The train had stopped at another station. The girl watched as more people filed in, emptying out the platform. The gray wired fence lining the walkway was bare. It seemed lonely.

The train car started moving again, and the girl stole a glance at the boy. His lashes were dark and unblinking as he scrolled through his phone.

“Do you care,” she thought aloud, “about anything?” The boy turned and looked at her.

“Of course I do. I want to help people.” She was silent, so he continued. “Like you. You keep running away from things, and it’s unhealthy.” The girl furrowed her brow.

“You don’t understand—I like everything I do. It helps me stay busy.” She was in the pre-law society, student government, anthropology club and debate team. She desired the comprehension in the quotidian. “And you know how debate is, it helps me remove myself—”

“You’re just avoiding the problem, and you have to face it at some point.” He cut her off. “Come on, we all know what you’re running away from.” He looked into her eyes intently. “Tell me what you’re running away from.”

She felt some discomfort grip her as she sat up straight to break from his gaze. “I’m not—you don’t know that.”

“I’ve been through the same thing before and I know what it’s like. It’s good to face it now rather than later,” the boy countered.

The girl sat quietly and knit her hands together. The boy returned to his phone. The girl thought about how much thought she had given her feelings, how much the thinking made her feel, and how little sense she could make of it. Her feelings gave way to more feelings and threw her around like those spinning tea cups she loved as a child, in theme parks where people made memories that were fun because there was no sense to them. Each spin was transient and finite. But she was older now and the spinning left her tumbling indefinitely, long after the ride ended. She would spin back to the stillness where she began and close her eyes at the sight of the dizzying, familiar world. She would go back to work, to classes and the occasional rain that spilled onto New York streets.

She gave it much thought. “I don’t know how else to live,” she said to no one in particular. The train attendant hole-punched the girl’s and the boy’s tickets before continuing to the next car.

“Let me tell you something,” the boy said, putting away his phone. The girl looked at the boy. His face had a light complexion, something like the moon, she thought.

“What?” She stared at his dark matted lashes and not his eyes. Then he did that thing. His dark brown eyes looked into hers and smiled a slight smile without comprehension but with something some would call “kindness.” It was the same expression he had when he saw her post-final exams, after she barely finished a paper. “It’s okay, kid,” he had told her. It had stung her that he would call her that, to find her so helpless. The boy always thought of her as a kid, the girl thought, as he reached out to pat her on the head. She recoiled.

“Stop.”

“What? I was just trying to make you feel better.” Hapless, he had called her.

“No you weren’t.”

The boy shrugged.

“I was going to say that my first real relationship ended badly too. Just remember that you didn’t love him anyways. You just needed to get out of your shell.” The girl winced.

“Stop—I don't care.”

“About him?”   

About you, she wanted to say. “About anything.”

“You’re lying.” The boy always acted as if he knew everything.

“No I’m not—you don’t know that.”

“You don't have to tell me; I know.” He leaned back into his seat.

She didn’t tell him. She looked out at the blue that was hiding behind the field of trees outside.

“So what about the tournament?” The boy asked without really wanting an answer. The girl stiffened her shoulders. She was watching the fields outside transition into suburban buildings. They were rather ugly.

“I just want to go home,” she said to no one in particular. The train trucked down the rail and the boy returned to his phone.