“That’s either a good sign,” he says, “or a bad one.”
She glances down at her phone, thinking suddenly of home. Her dads are early risers; they’re probably at the kitchen table right now, arguing about how many cups of coffee is too many. She starts to thumb over to her list of favorites, when she realizes there’s no service.
“This whole route is pretty patchy,” Duncan says. “We’re in a dead zone now.”
“You make it sound like the start of a horror movie.”
He laughs at this. “I can never watch those things.”
“Me neither.” She looks again at the stars out the window. “What happens if we’re stuck here for a while?”
“Then we’re stuck here for a while. Me and this guy in the dining car, Raymond, we always make bets on delays. The over-under on this one is six hours.”
“Are you over or under?”
“Over,” he says. “We’re already an hour in, and it doesn’t seem like we’re going anywhere soon.”
“Hey, Duncan, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What’s your biggest dream?” She doesn’t have her camera with her, but she finds she wants to know anyway.
He doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second. It’s as if he gets asked this question every single day. “A cabin on a lake. Maybe up in Wisconsin. I’d go ice fishing in the winters and take a boat out in the summers. Maybe get a dog to sit with me on the porch. No work. No schedules. No passengers.” He cracks a grin. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Just those stars,” he says, jabbing a thumb at the window. “But without the glass.”
Mae nods. “That sounds nice.”
“Sure does.”
She doesn’t ask his word for love. He’s still looking up at the stars with a thoughtful expression, and that feels to Mae like answer enough.
“Good night, Duncan,” she says with a smile, and he gives her a little wave.
“Good night, Margaret Campbell, room twenty-four.”
Mae flinches at this, the reminder that’s trailed her halfway across the country. She’s not Hugo’s girlfriend. She doesn’t know what she is, but it’s not that.
Just enjoy it, Priyanka said, which has never been a problem for Mae. In fact, it’s what these types of things have always been: fun and breezy and uncomplicated. There’s no reason why this should be any different.
It’s not that she doesn’t believe in love. But seeing other people’s stories unfold always feels like watching a movie she would never have picked out for herself. Somewhere there must be a version that’s more like the films in her head, bright and colorful and unique.
“You’re a tough nut to crack,” Nana once told her, and Priyanka’s warning that she’s too careful with her heart is still ringing in her ears.
But they’re both wrong. Her heart isn’t the problem.
It’s that she’s never met someone she actually hopes will break through.
When she reaches the door to their compartment, she pauses for a moment. Beneath her feet, there’s a faint vibration, almost like the purring of cat, but nothing else. After a few seconds, it disappears again, and they’re no longer even idling. They’re just stuck.
Trains are meant to be in motion. People too. They should be on their way somewhere, slicing through the dark rather than huddling here beneath it.
She slides open the door. Hugo is still asleep, his face mashed into the pillow, his arm hanging over the edge of the bunk. She steps up to the bed and studies him for a second, then—unable to resist—stands on her tiptoes and kisses him on the nose.
His eyelids flutter, and when they open, he looks sleepy and unfocused.
“Hugo?” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Doesn’t it sort of feel like this is a dream?”
“Yeah,” he says, then closes his eyes again. Mae is about to crawl into her own bunk when she hears his voice again. “A good one?”
“Yes,” she says, and he shifts over, leaving room for her to climb into the bunk beside him. It’s not graceful; she scrabbles to find the step, then bumps her head on the ceiling, and when she tries to shimmy in beside him, her foot gets caught in the safety net. But eventually she burrows her way into the small space, and he slips his arms around her so that she can feel the thud of his heart against her back as she falls asleep.
Sometime just before dawn, Hugo wakes with a start. The light behind the curtains is dull, the train jostling beneath them. One arm is draped over Mae’s shoulder, his nose buried in her hair. He doesn’t remember her climbing into bed with him, but it somehow also feels like she’s always been here, curled beside him in this tiniest of spaces.
She’s breathing softly, whistling a little each time she inhales, and he disentangles himself carefully, reaching for his mobile, which he tucked beneath his pillow. The glow of the screen brightens the room, and he turns on his side to keep from waking Mae. It’s just before five a.m., which means it’s late morning back home. He finds a text from his dad with a picture of the breakfast table. In it, there are seven plates piled with bacon and eggs and toast, and one empty one in the middle. Come home soon, it says. We miss you.
Hugo lowers his mobile, filled with a clawing despair.
A quote flashes into his head from a Samuel Beckett play he read in his literature class this year: I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
The words had chimed at something in him even then, but now they feel like a drumbeat, and he opens his mobile again to write to Alfie, a test balloon that sets his heart beating wildly.
Hugo: What if I didn’t come back?
Alfie: Ever??
Hugo: No, I was thinking more like a gap year.
Alfie: I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss.
Hugo: I’m not.
Alfie: Wow. That would be like the complete opposite of pulling a Hugo.
Hugo: Do you think Mum and Dad would kill me?
Alfie: Yes.
Hugo: But after that, they’d be okay with it?
Alfie: As long as you get your arse to uni at some point.
Hugo: George would never forgive me.
Alfie: You know how he is. He just likes to keep the flock together. But I’m sure he’d come around eventually.
Hugo: Maybe.
Alfie: Yeah, maybe.
Hugo: It’s a bit mad, isn’t it?
Alfie: I don’t know. It kind of makes sense. Your heart was never in it.
Hugo: It’s in this.
Alfie: So you’d give up the scholarship?
Hugo: Hopefully just defer it for a year.
Alfie: Better check to make sure we’re not a package deal. Five out of six isn’t bad, but you know they might not see it that way.
Hugo: I wouldn’t go ahead if it messed up anything up for the rest of you.
Alfie: But you really want it?
Hugo: I really, really want it.
Alfie: Then I hope they say yes.
Hugo rests the phone on his chest, watching it rise and fall in the gray light. He feels caught somewhere between asleep and awake. Before he can think better of it, he’s searching his contacts for a name: Nigel Griffith-Jones, Chair of Council, the University of Surrey.
When Hugo’s finished with the email, he thinks of the text from his dad again, the empty plate among all those fuller ones. Then he takes a deep breath and hits Send.
Hours later, when Mae begins to stir, Hugo is still awake. He’s staring at the ceiling, feeling slightly frozen, paralyzed by what he’s done. She twists to face him, her hair tangled but still smelling like lavender from the hotel shampoo, and rests her hand so casually on his chest that he relaxes again.
“Did I snore?” she asks, yawning.
“Only…a lot.”
She laughs. “You’re not so quiet yourself. How long have you been up?”
“A while,” he says, and there must be something odd in his voice, because she lifts her head to look at him. The edges of the curtains are laced with light, and her eyes still look sleepy and unfocused.
“What were you doing?”
“Some planning. Some worrying. Some thinking.”
“About?”
He wonders if she can feel his heart pounding underneath her hand. “About possibly taking a gap year.”