You know I can’t stay, you said.
Please, just don’t look back, you said.
The 5:07 is pulling into the station and I know you’re getting on. And I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with the people jostling around me… a stone in the flow of things. I didn’t look back. God help me… I didn’t look back.
And now I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve forgotten where I was supposed to go. And none of it matters anymore anyway. Not without you.
I can’t stay, you said. But you never said what I was supposed to do once you were gone. I think I just… might cease to be.
The people moving around me are strangely without rebuke, looking at me and looking uncomfortably away. It feels like I’m the one moving, and they’re standing still as they blur and fade before my eyes.
Don’t look back, you said, and I didn’t. It was the last thing you asked of me, so how could I deny you? I walked away and I didn’t turn around… just like you said.
I hear the whistle on the 5:07 and I close my eyes so I don’t have to see it pull out, don’t have to risk seeking a glimpse of what I’m not supposed to.
Don’t look back, the wheels seem to say as they build up speed. Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’tlookback. Don’tlookbackdon’tlookback…
‘I didn’t look,’ I whisper to them, feeling a pain in my chest that threatens to expand until it fills me.
But then arms close tight around me from behind.
‘I did,’ you say.