Autumn Remembrance

The train station. An old building that had been constructed near the birth of the town. It was a tall red-bricked building, with whitish arches and window frames that winked at the crowds as they waited impatiently for their bustling trees.

Not many people were inside the station today; only the old man at the ticket booth, who gave him a cheery smile when Bryson asked for a One-way, and the woman with the screaming pushchair. She kept pushing a bottle into it, but apparently, the pushchair didn’t want it. He shook his head slightly, to clear his mind of such distracting thoughts, and swept his eyes around the station.

Two teenage girls sat together on a bench, talking loudly. One kept glancing at him, moving her eyes up and down across his body and smiling. Her friend kept giggling, and then, she would too; turning back to whisper in her ear. Bryson lifted his head, and looked straight at them. They seemed to take this as an incentive, and as one, stood. Bryson sighed inwardly; they were making a straight beeline for him, smiling. Within moments, they had reached him.

“Hi, what’s your name?” The first girl shook her blond hair back over her shoulder, and smiled wider. “I’m Rachel. This is Tanya. It’s nice to meet you.”

Bryson said nothing. He really didn’t have time for this.

“Well?” her voice took on a pushy, wheedling kind of tone; one that hinted at impatience without sounding rude. Her friend – brown hair, hazel eyes – bit her lower lip; still smiling.

He still said nothing, but instead, met their eyes. The blond - green ones - stared casually back whilst she twisted a lock of hair. The brunette flicked her gaze away erratically when he looked at her. He allowed himself a small smile. Once again, he was misinterpreted.

The girls shared a fleeting, ecstatic smile, and Bryson felt briefly guilty. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, and he didn’t want to be remembered, but similarly, he didn’t want to fuck with these girls’ emotions. Fuck.
Slowly, and with the perfect amount of ease, he lifted the corners of his mouth into a winning smile; the smile that had so entrapped Alice….
He cast that thought aside and smiled wider, showing his teeth. The girls giggled, inwardly screaming in delight that this boy- this boy – was smiling back. Slowly, he opened his mouth and, in his calmest, sexiest voice said; “No thanks.”

It didn’t register. For a moment they kept on smiling but then, it seemed to click. The brunette flicked her eyes to the blond, searching for an answer to the alien words that had spilled from the boy’s mouth. The blond took a moment longer, but when it did sink in, her previous charming, flirty smile vanished. Quicker than Bryson would have thought, her face changed dramatically. It creased, her eyebrows met and her nose wrinkled up. Her perfect little mouth sneered at one side and she uttered a high pitched, slightly insane, laugh.

“Boys,” she all but screeched. “don’t know a good thing when they see it. Bye loser. C’mon Tanya.”
Completely speechless, Tanya hurried after her friend, glancing over her shoulder as they left.

Not at all surprised, and even less thrown off, Bryson watched them for a moment, before casting his eyes once around, and strolling up to the ticket booth. He really didn’t have time for things like this.