There was nothing but everything all at once. The room was on fire but she was now freezing. She wanted to run a mile and yet she could not move. The only motion was the constant stream of tears that stung her eyes as they poured down her face. The world was different now, she was different now and all she could think was how horribly indifferent he was. No emotion, a drought where there used to be monsoons. After what felt like hours she decided to lay her head on her pillow and the pain wracked her body once more. Her eyes burned and the world was a haze. She let her head fall to her pillow and fell apart.

The walls are a blinding white. You can’t leave unless you earn a pass from your observer. Everyone here is learning how to not be crazy. You must do what you are told. Sit, stay, speak. An insane asylum some may say but most call it school. He is trapped in a cold hard chair at a cold hard desk in a world of cold hard buildings. Maybe school seems like an insane asylum because he is crazy. This situation is his hell. He needs to get out. He needs to be crazy. It seems like all he has ever learned here is how to sit stay and speak. He doesn’t want to sit he definitely wont stay and is too far gone to even bother speaking. He used to speak books to her. They would go back and forth every hour of every day, but not anymore. He doubts he will ever speak to her again. He starts to feel it again. The fear, the hurt, the burning that resided in his chest as he thought about his decision. He knew he was right, but he was just so close to being wrong that it hurt so damn much. Close is never close enough he reminded himself over and over again while pinching at his jacket zipper until it left a red indent in his finger.

She was early for her train back to the city. She had come to visit her sister. Her sister could fix anything. Well, she could fix anything in others lives but not so much her own. She had a bad case of deja vu walking to the old beaten down train platform. She sat down her suitcase and started waiting while sipping on her cold brew. It was cold out side, but not a bad cold an amazing cold. The cold that comes after it rained that morning. The cold that wakes you up and makes the air feel new. It was just what she needed. Anything new was welcomed with open arms. She usually would follow the same schedule everyday and avoid anything new. Not because she was scared or uninterested, simply because she was a creature of habit. She enjoyed smelling the coffee from her old broken down keurig as it would struggle to sputter out lukewarm coffee every morning .She loved heating up her go to breakfast, microwave oatmeal, and feeling the steam hit her face as she stirred it. She smiled every morning when her feet hit the warm gravel and she was ready to start her day. Mornings used to be her favorite time of day. But everything had changed now. She woke up late not caring enough to make coffee or food. Waiting for the piece of junk keurig made her want to rip her hair out. Feeling the hot, muggy, gross steam from her oatmeal made her want to gag. Everything she used to love was now ruined. The only thing that made her happy was the haze. Waking up and still being half asleep and able to make dreams a reality or staring off into a light and staying completely still and letting your mind run wild. She would use this time to imagine his arms around her once more. Imagining him coming up behind her as she made her coffee. Imagining him laugh at her while she scarfed down her oatmeal. Imagining a time where life was warm and comfortable. Life was not warm and comfortable anymore and although she was excited by this new cold morning she couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be.

He stared off into the train tracks and let the multi colored pebbles fade in and out of focus. He was waiting for his train to Roanne beach. He was finally gonna trade in the cold concrete jungle for a warm sandy paradise. He longed for anything opposite to what he knew. His music was blaring through his head phones. He felt a presence next to him. That feeling that someone or something is telling you “look there now!”. It is an instinct, you can’t control it and so he looked and there she was. The first thing he noticed was her hair. It was long, so long that even though it was flowing over a puffy hood from her coat it fell all the way to the small of her back. She was tall, not compared to him because he towered over her but, for a girl. He thinks she got the, “look there now” instinct too because she was looking at him now but he had looked away and was focusing and unfocusing the train tracks because her “look there now” instinct was probably a “that man is staring at you, is he a predator” instinct. Her eyes were a dark and light at the same time. The color was literally dark but they carried so much light within them. They were rich sea green, it reminded him of his favorite bomber jacket he had folded away in his suitcase. He had noticed that she hadn’t stopped looking at him. She looked like she was about to say something. Her lips parted and then shut again as if she was second guessing herself. He couldn’t help but notice how supple and soft looking her lips were. He felt a light hand brush in his shoulder blade. He popped out one of his headphone buds. His usually hard and cold facial expression warmed as his eyes met hers. She said she liked his music, he gave her a polite thanks and debated continuing the conversation. he wasn’t the type to volunteer to speak to someone he wasn’t required to speak to, but it was just something about her. He knew different to all of the other bodies occupying the train platform. “You aren’t from here are you?” He said with a smile. It felt almost foreign to him to give away this piece of him that he had given to but a few select people in all his life. But when she returned his smile with one of her own and sighed, “is it that obvious”.

A cold drop of rain water dripped from the beams of the train platform, then another and another, this meant the train would pull in any second. This broke her out of her daze of remembrance. She found irony in the fact that she was back where it all started. It felt so long ago even though it was just a summer. A summer of train rides on this very train, because there’s only one in the small beach town. When the train arrived she took her seat by the window and watched the world fly by in a blur. She felt like she was flying. Free of all the guilt and disappointment that loomed over her life for the past months. She finally understood. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t his, it was life. They both worked so hard, maybe even too hard. They were almost perfect. But almost isn’t good enough no matter how good it might be. An almost soulmate is the worst, because you know you love them and they love you. Almost soulmates fill your heart and break it too.