The students are swarming the train corridor. They're excited and full of energy, they're desperate to see their families, start the holidays, and have fun. I remember that feeling, but it's gone now.
In the corner of my eye, I see him shift, his gaze skitters around the compartment, never settling on me.
I look at him. He doesn't look at me.
The students are pouring out through the doors now, onto the platform and into the waiting arms of their mothers, fathers, siblings.
Families. I don't need to search those waiting faces, taught with anticipation to see their beloved children, to know that there is nothing there for me.
My family. My love. He is right here, and he's waiting. Waiting to hurt us, to rip apart everything we've held close to us for years. Everything that has held us both together, kept us going. I want to hate him. But I can't do it.
The platform is packed, people are heading home, it wont be long before someone comes down to check we've all left.
This is it. It's over. The moment I've been dreading since he came into my life; full of nervous energy and desperate to be accepted.
I know it before he says anything, I can see it in the pained expression he's been making every time he thinks I'm not looking.
"Oliver."
I look at him, his eyes lock with mine and I can feel a pressure behind my eyes, a prickling, overwhelming pressure. I have to look away, I can't take the way his jaw tenses, the way it always does when he has to do something he's not sure he can go through with. I know if I look again, he'll be clasping his hands in his lap, rubbing them together, pulling at the skin. It's a nervous tic, and if I look over, I wont be able to stop myself from reaching over and holding his hands in mine.
I can't do that. This is difficult enough, I wont make it harder on us both.
"Oliver. Please."
He'll have that hard look in his eyes, his voice is strained, the words cut shorter than usual. In his voice I can hear the coarse lump jamming my own throat, and I know how he's feeling. I feel it too. I can't look.
The air shifts, and I feel him rise from his seat. Slowly, painfully, drawn out to slow the coming of the end - he walks to the window. Then the world beyond our compartment - beyond our little pocket of the universe - disappears behind the blinds, pulled over the window, hiding us from them.
"Please. Look at me. I need to talk to you"
I look at him, and it hurts, just like I knew it would. My chest shakes and I draw in breath, try to calm myself, I knew this would happen, I've always known, I should be prepared. I've talked myself round in circles lying awake at night, trying to decide what I'd say when this day came, when it all ends, but I'm still not ready.
I reach out. His hands are soft in mine, but they're shaking. I pull him further towards me and he falls to the floor gripping me tight. His face is wet, streaked with tears and I feel them as they fall from my own eyes, one and the same.
"I'm sorry" It's choked out, broken. He means it, I know he does and I know this is the end.
I slide down the bench and lean in, wrapping my arms around his and lacing our fingers.
I hold him tight and he holds me as we grieve what we are loosing. What can never be and never will. I can feel through the pressure of his palm against mine that this was real. That I have not imagined these past few years, that he was mine and I was his.
It was us and them. For so long we were together against the world.
Now, it will be me and him.
When the blinds have been lifted. When it has come to an end and the walls have fallen down. He walks a different path than mine.
I don't let myself look back. I know what I would find. I know that I would not be able to turn around again. I could not walk away if I let myself indulge in one last look before he slips away. And I know he would let me. He would put aside everything for me, walk across broken glass and engulf himself in flames if I said I wanted him to stay with me.
So I don't look back.
But I know he does.