The Waiting Station

I bury the tool box like one buries a coffin. 

Sweat pours down my face. I step back, admiring my handiwork, and nearly trip over the refurbished train tracks behind me.

Shouts interrupts my triumphant musings.

I swivel my head to find a crowd of orange-clad men racing toward me. The rims of their yellow hardhats gleam in the sunlight, their chests cloaked in neon armor.

I spin around, throwing down the shovel, and flee. 

The wooden tracks twist and curve. I beat my sneakers faster, fueled by the creaking and cracking beneath me. The vacant train station sails into view with its anemic brick walls. I scramble up the platform, barely rounding the corner when a thunderous force slams into my side. 

Hands wrap around mine, restraining me instantly. My cheek stings as I’m shoved against the wall. Metal bites into my wrists, the cuffs fusing to my skin.

“Is this the part where you read me my rights?” I snort.

The hands curl around my shoulders, wheeling me around. There’s no amusement in the stony face that greets me. A vein bulges from Grayson’s forehead like a blue rubber band. His jade eyes are dull, glazed with exhaustion. 

“Why do you keep doing this?” 

I let out a low hum, inhaling the scent of leather and dark roast that clings to him. “Because I have to. I’m waiting for someone.”

A loud sigh escapes my brother. He tugs me by the cuffs, peddling me in the direction of the mob of construction workers. 

I wear my brightest grin the entire way to the police station. The skin that grafts my cheeks starts to burn, but I don’t let the smile falter. And when the shame worms its way into my chest, I bury it like one buries a coffin—beneath layers and layers of coarse clay, stretched and stuffed with skin.

~⥈~

I yank on the cuffs, rotating my wrists. The chattering police officers and shrieking phones outside the office fall into obscurity—until there’s only the clink and clank of the chains. 

And the sound of my brother’s voice.

“Yes, I already talked to him. It won’t happen again, sir… Thank you for your patience… I understand…”

Stern green eyes find mine from the other side of the desk. Grayson’s hand tightens around the corded phone pressed to his ear. More buzzing filters through the phone’s speaker, and he turns away, muttering more apologies.

I tune him out, scanning the desk for something small enough to fit in the keyhole of the cuffs. The desk is strewn with papers and pens. I spot a paperclip folded around a stack of files and inch closer.

“Sir, can I call you back?”

Grayson’s voice is agitated, impatient, so I lunge forward quickly. By the time he faces me again, the paperclip is securely held and hidden between my knees.

“Lucas.”

I don’t glance up, fiddling with the cuffs.

“Now you have nothing to say?” Grayson demands. “You were plenty forthcoming when you were mouthing off to Mr. Andrews's crew after burying their tools again!”

“They’re the ones stealing our taxes and sitting around on their hands. I did the city a favor.”

“Do you think this is funny? This is the fourth time I’ve had to convince him to drop the charges.”

“Fifth time’s the charm.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

My gaze flashes over the desk again, noting the cleanliness, the dull pile of papers, the absence of anything remotely sentimental.

“You cleaned your desk,” I observe.

Except for a single corner where a layer of dust lingers, as though someone had deliberately avoided wiping over it. Particles cling to the inside of the letters etched into the wood by a pocket knife. 

J A X X O N 

The sight of the name cuts deeper than the metal digging into my wrists. I tug on the cuffs, melting into the pain and away from the memory.

“Lucas, look at me.”

I don’t.

Grayson’s thin patience expires. “Enough! I can’t do this anymore! Neither can you!” And then his baritone voice abruptly softens, just a tad. It’s a dip in cadence that used to be reserved exclusively for the name etched into his desk. “I miss him too, but you mourn the dead. You don’t join them.”

I pick at my jeans, prying the paperclip from between my knees. “Is that why you approved finishing construction on the train station?” 

“They delayed for as long as they could. People have to move on.”

The flippancy in his voice infuriates me.

I jerk my head, forgetting the cuffs. “Why don’t you move on? Stop pretending like you’re not dying to stick me into juvie so you can move on with your life and just do it! We don’t have to pretend for his sake anymore.”

I don’t even see Grayson’s hand move. I only register the slamming of his palm against the desk. The vibration travels through the entire desk and up my chair.

I almost drop the paperclip. A lump materializes in my throat, but I swallow it. “Careful, officer. You’re acting like Dad right before he left.”

Before he can parry a response, I twist the paperclip against the keyhole and the handcuffs open with a pop, sliding from my wrists. Grayson’s mouth parts. His hand shoots toward me. I spin away and sprint out the open door. 

The police station is a blur of shouting, navy uniforms, and golden badges as I dash for the exit. I make it four steps outside—eyes riveted in the direction of the train station—when I’m unceremoniously tackled from behind. The cuffs snap around my wrist as I’m paraded back inside. And I do the only thing I know how to do—the only thing he taught me how to do when the pain inside hurts so badly that I think my chest is going to split. I smile.

Somewhere in the distance, the whistling of a train cleaves through the air.

~⥈~

“Do I know you?”

Grayson’s eyes meet mine from across the balcony. A crease appears between his dark brows, the vein in his forehead swelling. “What?” he murmurs, voice almost lost in the cacophony of car horns beneath us.

I fold my arms across the railing. “Do I know you, officer? I’ve been explicitly warned not to mingle with strangers.”

A tic spasms in his jaw. Faint shadows flicker across the crevices of his face, sinking into the bags beneath his eyes. His posture tenses, the broad shoulders hidden beneath his jacket quivering. Finally, he tilts his head.

“How long are we going to keep playing this game?”

“Until somebody wins.”

“Don’t you mean until you win?”

“I never wanted to win.” I massage the blemished skin of my wrist. “I want to lose.”

A sigh escapes him. “I've always wanted you to win,” he says, the words whispered as softly as the wind. 

“Maybe that’s why we both keep losing.”

“Interesting theory.”

“I know. And I’m not even the detective.”

He’s silent for a moment.

And then—

“Stop running away.”

I lower my head tiredly. There’s something missing from the end of his request; a prepositional phrase that he should have no right to. 

From me.

“I can’t.” My gaze flits over the city below, fixating on the train station in the distance. It’s nearly over. It’s nearly done. “I’m waiting for someone.”

~⥈~

A mournful silence envelopes the train station, occasionally interrupted by humming machinery and shouting workers. I watch the scene from the roof, doing my best to ignore the irritating man below.  

“Are you going to come down from there, or do I have to call the police again?”

“In a minute!” I shout to Mr. Andrews. 

“What are you even doing up there? Don’t you know that’s a safety hazard? You’re endangering the public!” 

I’m aware that the twenty-foot drop could kill me, but I fail to see how falling to my death onto the empty platform could qualify as public endangerment. Besides, tomorrow is the big day, the grand reopening. And the city has already proven that a little death won’t get in the way of their profits. 

“I’m waiting for someone!” I yell back.

“Waiting for the police?”

My face breaks into a grin. “Sure!”

“Kid, just come down. We already found the shovels you hid. Now, you don’t want the police to have to get up there.”

“Why not? They need their cardio, too.”

He disappears after that, and I melt into the sun's caress. Eventually the warmth dims, expressing its salutations as it retreats into the cover of night. The band of workers dwindles. He finds me then. Like he always does. My eyes remain sealed, but I feel the vibration of the stone as he takes a seat next to me on the ledge. 

“We can’t keep doing this.”

My cheeks are cold, numbed by the rough strokes of the empty breeze. A warm hand curls around my shoulder suddenly, and I jerk.

“Lucas.” There’s something wounded in his tone, in the way he whispers my name like it's heavy on his tongue. “Enough. I know that I haven’t been—but what are you waiting for? Another funeral? Yours?”

My eyelids are fused to my cheeks by a sticky wetness. “I'm waiting—”

“For no one. There’s no one here but me.”

Something tightens in my chest. “There’s no one left,” I correct him.

The hand around my shoulder is wrong. Because the warmth isn’t attached to azure eyes, wide and rounded, and a smile, beaming and crinkled. The warmth doesn’t evoke memories of messy tangles of hair brushing against my cheek as we’d wrestled; the scent of his hoodie, like motor oil, pressed against my face. 

The hand around my shoulder isn’t his.

My eyes grow heavy. My chin ducks forward and suddenly I’m free falling. I sail sideways, colliding with the firm chest that I trusted would be there. Something is thumping crazily against my ear, and I let out a grumble at the imaginary alarm clock. 

“I’m tired, Grayson. I just want it to be over.”

The arms winding around me freeze and then curl tighter, coiling around me like cuffs. I can feel myself being carried away, a hand under my knees, keeping me securely in place. 

I want to sleep, I almost whisper, I want to bypass the waiting station. 

“Aren’t you a cop?” I mumble instead. The absence of metal biting into my wrists is bizarre. 

“Sometimes.”

Right now, he has a different role. I can’t remember what it is. Just that someone filled that spot before him. 

“No stray cats to rescue?” I say.

“Not tonight. A different kind of stray, actually.”

Grayson picks up speed. I try to count the steps, but the sound of his pounding heartbeat keeps interfering with my counting. 

“You’ve gotten lighter.”

“There are no lights here,” I murmur, confused. 

His chest rumbles. “There are lights everywhere. You just can’t see anything with your eyes closed.”

He’s wrong. I see everything with my eyes closed. The layout of the tracks, the position of Jaxxon’s body splayed out across them. Beneath my eyelids, the nightmares are preserved in vivid detail. 

“He didn’t want to go,” I admit as the images ripple and repeat. “I made him… I kept nagging until he gave in.”

Grayson’s chest rumbles again, but I can’t hear the words. All I can hear is the whistling horn, the thunderous metal pounding against the tracks—

“There weren’t supposed to be any trains that night,” I whisper.

The darkness snatches hold of me completely, pulling me under. But not before I hear the crack, and then the dripping of crimson puddles along the tracks.

~⥈~

I awaken to a bed that smells strongly of dark roast and leather. 

When I reach across the mattress, the other side is still warm. A crease, a slight crisscrossing of the worn blue fabric gives the impression that someone was just sitting there, a cup of coffee in hand, keeping watch. 

I glance around Grayson’s room, taking in the sheer emptiness, what some might call tidiness. The bookshelf is neatly arranged, the walls devoid of any character or blemishes, and the wooden dresser is barren. 

Like a coffin.

I tear out of the comforter and out of the room. 

When I reach the kitchen, I find a mug in the sink, the edges of the ceramic stained with dark flakes. But the apartment is silent. Through the window above the sink, I spot the orange flecks of daybreak.

“The train station re-opens today,” I murmur aloud. 

I rush toward the shoe rack, yanking on a pair of sneakers without bothering to tie the laces. 

Because my brother’s gotten a headstart this time. 

And maybe I lied. Maybe I do want to win.

~⥈~

I sit with my legs criss-crossed atop the tracks. Bits of splinters poke into the underside of my knees. I ignore the discomfort and wait. The smell of minted metal fills my nostrils. 

I curl a hand around the tracks, soothing the wood. A splinter digs through my nail.

The sensation jerks me awake.

I feel a gnawing in my head; something simultaneously snapping into place and shattering into pieces. 

The emotion descends on me like a coughing fit—seizing my lungs. The nerves in my head blister with white-hot pain. Black dots crawl at the edge of my vision. The guilt swoons, sinking deeper.

And then I see him.

Blue eyes, larger than life, not death, sprinting ahead of me on the tracks, leaving me waiting, waiting, waiting—

But on that particular day, I had been the one racing ahead, a laugh sputtering from my lips. I was so focused on getting ahead of my brother, taking pride in my lead, that I hadn’t registered the whistling. By the time I looked back, my eyes had grown so accustomed to the darkness that I regarded the beam of light racing toward me as a figment of my imagination.

When I was violently heaved from the tracks and the mass of metal slammed into his body, the illusion evaporated. When I gathered the courage to approach him, he had evaporated, too. The awkward angle of his neck announced his death before the paramedics arrived. A deep red painted the wood, and his eyes were laughing no more.

I sit on his grave now.

A shallow mound of dirt.

And when the station re-opens, trains will scurry down these tracks without remorse for the life they took, the passengers unaware of the blood that stretches below, growing in the splinters of wood—

A shout breaks across the clearing.

The metal vibrates beneath me. Someone else joins me on the track.

A swatch of orange paste clings to the sky behind Grayson. The rattling handcuffs hanging from his waist glint as he races toward me.

A high-pitched squeal sounds from behind.

I ignore the noise, eyes fixed on my brother. A brilliant light suddenly illuminates his figure, extending from me to him. Linking us in a sprawling streak of white. I tilt my head, trying to make sense of the apparition.

“Oh!” I shout, the realization dawning on me. “You were right! There are lights everywhere!”

Fog pours over the tracks, steam scalding the back of my neck. I can smell something sparking and burning. The light ripples, revealing Grayson’s wide eyes, his mouth pulled into a scream as the distance between us shrinks.

I finally twist my head back.

The train races forward.

Within the blur of light that bathes Grayson and me, that erupts from the mass of metal vaulting towards us, I see Jaxxon.

Glassy orbs where his eyes should be—absent of light.

I’m standing still this time. Not running. Waiting. But the outcome remains the same.

I shut my eyes. 

My body tips to the right, unable to wait any longer.

I start to fall off the tracks.

Hands shove me from behind, upheaving me with extra force. A tangle of arms and legs snake around mine as we drop. A wave of dark roast and leather assaults my senses. Something beats furiously against my chest, and I can’t tell whose heart is blustering faster, mine or his. 

The screeching train hauls past us, the wind slicing through the air like a knife.

“You idiot! You stupid idiot!” Grayson rages between ragged breaths, jostling me harshly. “They wanted to have a test run before the opening! You—you knew there was a train coming and you still—”

“I saw the lights,” I whisper.

The hands around me slacken. My brother pulls himself into a sitting position. I remain lying in the dirt, peering at the dawn.

“I saw the lights,” I repeat. “I almost lost the game.”

Grayson clears his throat, expunging something wet and raspy. Before I can recover my breath, my hands are restrained behind me. The familiar cuffs encircle my wrists as I’m hauled from the ground. 

Later, when we step outside the station together, I catch a glimpse of the tracks running down Grayson’s rough face. I lift a shackled hand and grasp his. Without looking down at me, my brother’s fingers weave between mine. 

I chance a look back, eyes riveted to a particular mound of dirt near the tracks. I close my eyes, and when I reopen them, the mound is gone, indistinguishable from the wide expanse of dirt surrounding the station. 

“I was waiting for someone,” I whisper. 

The hand wrapped around mine tightens, the shackles keeping our hands linked. “Me, too,” Grayson says. “But the waiting station is closed. Let’s go home.”

The trip to the police station is a blur. But when I find myself in Grayson’s office again, awaiting a lengthy scolding, something has changed.

I slip the paperclip into the handcuffs, unlocking them, and slide them from my wrists. And then I set them on the desk and wait.

I wait, knowing that he’ll come. 

And he does.