For Mary

When Mary finally had gotten to the train, it was already way too full. As she was walking through the train to find an empty compartment, she had to dodge multiple people that were running around. The students were coming from compartment to go to the next, greeting everyone they knew and catching up with them.

They were excited to see their friends again and to tell them about their holidays or to talk about the new gossip. Some of them thought it a good idea to do so right in the gangway. Mumbling “sorry” every time, Mary had to force herself through.
Some of the people just ignored her, others threw her curious glances. Mary figured they had just found another piece of gossip to talk about. She smiled shyly at some of them, but didn`t engage.

Because she wasn`t paying attention, she bumped into a someone, who was standing in the gangway. The girl looked at her rudely, but then raised her eyebrows.
Mary recognized her from her old school, a year above her. She was standing with her group of her friends, all eyes on Mary.

“Oh my god, you`re May, right? Didn’t you used to hang out with my sister?”

Mary cheeks could feel her cheeks turning red, and she felt the urge to run, but instead she laughed.

“Oh my god, totally! It`s Mary, but- “

“-right, sorry, Mary. Do you want to sit with us?” she interrupted.

“I`d love to, I just already have a seat reserved for me so…” without thinking, Mary came up with a lie and couldn`t stop herself.

“Ah, alright, see you later, Mary!” the girl said absentmindedly, already in a conversation with someone else.

Mary mentally kicked herself. Why would she do that? Making friends had been all she had thought about before, but now that chance was gone.

She needed a break from all this noise and chaos, and luckily, she found it in one of the next compartments.

She put her suitcase up on the overhead bin and sank into her seat. The train still hadn`t left the station and as she looked out the window, she noticed a lot of families still waiting.
Mary`s family had left in a hurry, since they still had a long drive ahead of them and her parents had a meeting with a client in the afternoon.

Her mum had been dangerously close to tears and had hugged Mary a thousand times, even though they were already late. Her dad had been full on crying, but he didn`t say much to Mary, more at loss trying to find the right thing to say than he had been trying to park the car.
Saying goodbye had been hard, but Mary felt glad they weren´t watching like all the other parents.

Now that she was finally alone, she could check on her shoulder bag. It was every small thing you allowed yourself to be happy about, like finally coming home after a long day of school. It belonged to only her. She could finally breathe as she went through the bag to find her pairs of headphones, notebooks, cassettes, and a secret.

Every time she got it out of her bag, her heart decided to beat way to loudly. She felt criminal. She felt better than she had been all day.
It was a CD with a dark blue cover, the title written down in the bottom left corner. Mary carefully ran her fingers over the CD.

For Mary, it read.

She couldn`t help but smile. A secret that belonged to only her.

Suddenly, the compartment door was opened. Out of reflex, she quickly hid the CD in her bag and looked at the stranger guiltily.
Fortunately, he didn´t notice, too distracted with whatever was going on in the gangway. He was slightly out of breath, his eyes still searching.
Mary cleared her throat and the boy immediately straightened. He turned around to look at her and gestured to the empty seat opposite to her.

The boy avoided eye contact, his facial expression neutral, but slightly annoyed. He looked like he was slightly younger than Mary, maybe fourteen. His black curls were long enough to cover most of his facial features, only his grey eyes visible through them. He caught her staring and Mary quickly looked away.

She dedicated herself to her notebook and started to scribble in it like she so often did.
She really hadn`t had one purpose for it, she used it for all kinds of things. Sometimes she`d draw a cool person she had seen, or write about her day, sometimes she used it to write down a particular lyric she had liked. Now she was simply scribbling weird shapes and forms to distract herself. Mary couldn`t help but notice that the boy had a notebook of his own in his hands, his long, elegant fingers running over it.

Mary appreciated his silent presence.

Finally, the train started to move. Some parents were running after it, probably embarrassing their children in the process. Mary`s family had already left in a hurry; her parents had a meeting with a client in the afternoon.
Her mum had been dangerously close to tears and had hugged Mary a thousand times, even though they were already late. Her dad had been full on crying, but he didn`t say much to Mary, more at loss trying to find the right thing to say than he had been trying to park the car.

As Mary looked outside, she noticed two people in black, straight-cut coats, standing near her window.
The boy beside her looked right at them. They must have been his parents. Mary expected a wave at the very least, but the boy´s face was frozen, and his parents didn`t move a muscle either. Mary wasn`t sure, but she thought she had seen him gripping his notebook tightly now.

"Aren`t you going to wave them goodbye?" Mary asked and regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.

The boy sharply turned to look at her. He couldn`t have been older than fourteen, Mary was sure of it now. Though that comment may have gotten her an even worse look than the one she was getting now.

"Why aren`t you?" he asked with a cold voice.

Fair enough.

"Already did," she answered and looked back at her notebook again.

Definitely not the right thing to say.

For a while, Mary`s scribbling was the only sound in the compartment until-

"Are you ever going to stop your stupid scribbling and actually draw something?" The boy asked and Mary wasn`t sure who was more surprised to hear him talk.

She looked up to find the boy`s cheeks all red. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. This reminded her of her little sister.

"Why aren`t you?" she echoed and gestured to his own notebook.

"I could," he shot back, and his cheeks got even redder.

Mary smiled wider. The boy narrowed his eyes.

"Should`ve gone with the other guy," he mumbled, loud enough for Mary to hear.

"What?"

"It was you, or the guy with the funny glasses and his friends. Should`ve gone with him."

"I am flattered," Mary said, one hand over her chest.

"Don`t be," the boy retorted. Mary laughed at that, and the boy tried to hide it, but Mary caught the corners of his mouth slightly raised.

"I`m Mary," she said.

"I didn`t ask," he answered.

"Are you always this rude?"

"Do you always ask this many questions?"

"Your name is Regulus."

"How did y-", he looked at the name tag on is bag and narrowed his eyes. “That`s not mine.”

“Sure, it isn`t, Regulus.”

Mary didn`t know where all this confidence of her was coming from, but she couldn`t say that she wasn`t enjoying it.

Their little back-and-forth was interrupted by shouting coming from the gangway. Regulus groaned. He probably suspected the people he had tried to escape from earlier, Mary suspected.
She opened the compartment door before Regulus could stop her and stuck her head out. There was a boy running from a compartment to the next, clearly looking for someone. His hair moved wildly while he was running. It had the same shade of black as Regulus` hair, though his was reaching his shoulders and sticking out in most parts. The boy was now coming to a halt before Mary.

“You! My brother, he`s hiding from us again, he- anyway he looks like me, but shorter and less pretty, have you seen him?”

“Black curls, black sweater?” Mary asked and the boy`s eyes lit up. “Yes!”

“He went that way to hide in the toilet, I think,” Mary said, and the boy was already running.

“Why`d you do that?” Regulus asked as Mary got back to her seat. He genuinely seemed confused, like he didn`t understand why someone was being nice to him.

“Because I wanted to,” she said and meant it.

Regulus still looked confused, but even more so he looked curious. Instead of asking, the boy turned to look outside again. Curious, but stubborn. It held him back. Mary mirrored him and sat back in her seat to look outside.

People were complicated. Train rides weren`t. Train rides felt to Mary like a good film. It took you somewhere. You couldn`t control where, you could only watch and follow the story, follow the sea of endless trees, marvel at the big mountains.
The trees and the mountains, they weren`t moving, they couldn`t. But the train did. It moved on so quickly, just one tree after the other.

Life wasn`t that simple. Everything seemed always bigger. You couldn`t just fast forward, skip to the next tree.

Every time she got off the train or left the cinema, Mary was inspired by the easiness of it all, but all it took was one step back into reality and everything got too big and too much again.

This was what she feared when they arrived at the station. The next step. Everything getting too big, too fast. And it did. Getting off the train, stepping into the mass of students, she felt small.