Devonne Brown

She waited…

Margo kept thinking to herself, “I waited, but I don’t think it was long enough, or maybe I was on the wrong track. That must’ve been it. I was on the wrong track. I know I got the trains  mixed up.”

She wept. She sat on her suitcase on the platform and just sobbed. He loved her, he said he did. He must be crushed that she had been so stupid to go to the wrong platform at the wrong time.

He would never know where to find her. Their lives together would never begin now. 

And she knew she was lying to herself. 

He wasn’t coming. The time and place were right. She had been wrong, she’d known it for a long time. Still she wept. Tears of foolishness, anger, embarrassment. This was a bad way for it to end. Tacky actually. Margo blew her nose, left her bags where they were and walked to the ticket office. 

“I seem to have missed my train. Could you help me? I need to exchange this for one to Heathrow please,” The man in the office looked up at her red nose and tear streaked face. He understood what she meant, but made the exchange. 

“Miss, they’ll be a two pound surcharge, I’m afraid.Next train leaves in an hour. You can get a cup of tea inside.”

“You mean a two pound stupid charge. I understand. I’ll wait for the train, out here. Thank you,” And she went back to sit on her bags. War was hell. So were soldiers. At least her family would be welcoming with their “I told you sos, and What did I says?” She dreaded starting over again. Thank God she wasn’t pregnant. She’d get a sherry or two on the train. Ease the pain of desertion. A deserter. God, she’d fallen in love with a deserter of all things. How stupid could she be. Now she was angry all over.

Margo began to pace back and forth. A newspaper on the ground caught her eye and she picked it up. She’d have something to read on the train. She looked for the crossword, it hadn’t been done. Excellent, She could drink and think about something besides him and his chickenshit ways. She was glad he was gone. Next, she thought.

Even if he came running down the platform right this minute, she’d send him on his way. She looked to make sure he wasn’t. He wasn’t. Her heart sank again, and the tears came again. The train whistle blew in the distance and the tears were hot against her cheeks. Damn.

She looked again to make sure he wasn’t coming while the train pulled in and stopped. Someone helped her with her bags and showed her to her seat. “Sherry, please. Do you have a pen?” Her brain had turned off, some sherry and the countryside would flip the switch. She thought for a moment he’d sit with her, but he was gone. 

She wouldn’t let the tears come as the train steward put the sherry and a pen on the table in front of her. Next stop, Heathrow.