A Wristband for the Road

The train station had always been loud, but that morning it felt louder, like every wheel scrape and suitcase clatter was determined to underline the fact that the world was shifting beneath Nora’s feet.

Winter clung to the air: crisp, metallic, smelling faintly of burnt coffee and cold steel. She pushed through a cluster of commuters and scanned the platform with frantic eyes.

There. Platform Nine.

And him.

Cal sat perched on his dark blue suitcase, swinging one leg idly like a kid waiting for recess instead of an international departure. A single beam of sunrise had squeezed through the industrial pillars of the station roof, and it found him with uncanny precision, lighting his messy hair, highlighting the nervous set of his shoulders, making him look like some traveller plucked out of a storybook.

“Typical,” Nora muttered as she approached. “Looks like he’s waiting for a pastry instead of a life change.”

Cal spotted her and hopped off the suitcase. His face broke into a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thought you’d overslept.”

“I almost did,” she said, cheeks flushed from rushing. “Mum made waffles. It was a vicious trap.”

He barked a laugh. “She thinks anything dipped in syrup is my religion.”

“It sort of is.”

He shrugged one shoulder, the way he always did when he didn’t want to admit she was right. But his gaze lingered, really lingered, searching her face like he was taking inventory of details he’d miss later. He didn’t hide it, and she didn’t pretend not to notice.

The loudspeaker crackled overhead. Final boarding for the 7:10 Northbound International Service. All passengers, please make your way aboard.

The voice was too cheerful, too calm, too unaware that Nora’s insides had just knotted into something sharp.

“So,” she said, “this is actually happening.”

“It is.” His breath plumed in the cold air. “Are you alright?”

“No,” she admitted. “Are you?”

“Not even slightly.”

For a moment, the surrounding platform faded, tourists arguing over maps, businessmen power-striding past, a baby somewhere loudly proclaiming its displeasure at life. It all softened into background static. Nora felt suspended in a little pocket of stillness with him, the way they used to when they snuck onto the school roof at lunchtime and shared headphones, pretending the world was something manageable.

She wanted the stillness to last. It couldn’t.

Cal reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded scrap of paper. “Here.”

She frowned as she took it. “Is this… homework?”

“No. Insurance,” he said, trying for casualness and failing spectacularly.

She unfolded the page. A doodle, shaky but unmistakable: the two of them, years younger, wielding lightsaber-shaped sticks, facing down a dragon made entirely of algebra homework and scribbled exclamation marks. Beneath it, in his familiar messy handwriting: For days you need to remember we’ve beaten worse monsters.

Her throat tightened. “Cal…”

“Don’t make that face,” he said lightly, though his voice wavered. “I’ll never survive the journey if you make that face.”

She tucked the doodle carefully into her backpack, between her sketchbook and the old train ticket stub he once said “smelled like adventure.” Then she pulled out a small knitted wristband, colours mismatched as if a rainbow had been pressured into a fight it didn’t sign up for.

“I made you this,” she said. “It’s supposed to look stylish and brave, but—”

“It looks like a unicorn threw up on it,” he supplied.

“Yes. Exactly that.”

He grinned, really grinned, then slid it onto his wrist with exaggerated pride. “Perfect. Now everyone in Europe will know I have taste.” Before she could answer, the train’s horn sounded: a low, emotional note that vibrated through the soles of her boots.

Everything in Nora rebelled. Everything in her wanted to freeze time by sheer stubbornness.

“Promise me something?” she said, voice small.

“Anything.”

“Don’t vanish. Not like people do when things get complicated. Messages. Calls. Smoke signals. Send a highly trained squirrel if you must.”

Cal nodded, no hesitation. “I won’t disappear. You’re stuck with me, Nora. No matter how many time zones I cross.”

Then he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

Nora collapsed into the hug without even pretending otherwise. His coat smelled like laundry pods and lingering hot chocolate. His heartbeat thudded against her cheek in that uneven rhythm she’d teased him about back in Year Eight. She squeezed her eyes shut, anchoring herself to the moment, memorising the feel of it because she knew, knew, she’d replay this embrace on loop later when the ache got too sharp.

He held on just as tightly. Neither wanted to be the first to let go.

When they finally parted, he touched her elbow lightly, as though grounding himself before stepping away.

“I should get on,” he said.

“I know.” She didn’t move.

He took one step backward. Then another. The distance between them stretched like a taut thread.

Halfway to the train door, he turned and looked at her with an expression she’d never seen on him before, something fragile, hopeful, scared, and determined all at once. A quiet storm.

His lips shaped a word she didn’t need to hear to understand.

She lifted her hand.

He lifted his.

A wordless pact.

The doors slid shut with a soft thud that sliced the air between them. The glass reflected her face, small, pale, braced against the cold, blending with the fading warmth of the single beam of sunlight that had rested on him earlier.

The train began to move. Slow at first. Then faster. Wheels clattering rhythmically, as if mocking the steady silence growing inside her.

Nora swallowed hard. The platform blurred. The sunlight dimmed. Her fingers curled into her sleeves.

The world felt suddenly too large.

She stepped closer to the edge of the platform, watching the final carriage vanish around the bend. Her breath trembled as it left her.

“Come back,” she whispered.

The words dissolved into the icy morning air, unheard by the person they were meant for. And yet, she felt it, a quiet echo carried along the rails, as though the universe had taken her plea and tucked it somewhere safe.

The station resumed its bustle around her, uncaring. A man dropped his coffee. A pigeon strutted with inappropriate confidence. Someone behind her sneezed with theatrical force.

Life kept moving.

But Nora stayed still for a few moments longer, letting the ache settle into something she could carry. Something that didn’t crush her, but carved a space for the hope she refused to put down.

Only when the sunlight shifted off the platform entirely did she turn to leave.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and her pulse whispered a truth she wasn’t ready to say aloud: he had taken a piece of her with him.