Is Taken Me Away

I knew it was stupid. I knew it at the time, before I’d even put one foot past the train door. It had to be, right? I was abandoning everything I knew, and just, just going. I couldn’t deal with it anymore, and that was that.

The bright lights of London Waterloo station hailed behind me. Telling me to go back, telling me to go home, say sorry for the things I’d said, and just stick with everything. Live a lie. But the grey concrete underneath my dirty trainers was arguing with me, my devil-and-angel-on-each-shoulder situation.

So I stood, at the end of platform ten, one hand on a train ticket I couldn’t afford and one placed firmly over the strap of my backpack. Everything I could gather: a couple of tins, some clothes, I wasn’t even sure about the rest. God knows what else I’d shoved in at the time.

People rushed past me, not paying the slightest bit of attention to my moral dilemma. They probably had families to get home to, wives to kiss, husbands to greet. A woman in a green skirt looked at me briefly before hurrying on, and one man stared at me through his wide framed glasses as he hopped on the train, but that was all I got. A couple of confused glances.

I fiddled with the edge of my t-shirt, stalling time. It was a simple choice, get on the train, or turn back and get the Central line back to my Dad’s house. Not home, not anymore. It was, for a long time of course. And my heart ached to think of childhood memories, not even four years prior.

I felt tears prick behind my eyes at the thought, and no. No. I couldn’t. Not there.

Over the quick-sand of my thoughts I heard the whistle sound, the train start to buzz with life. It was now or never. I wasn’t exactly running away, I was starting anew. In a new city with new people, and new buildings, and new pavements, and new everything else. But the sky was the same.

The same sun, and the same stars. I’d be followed by the same moon, so really, my family (or the ones that still cared anyway), weren’t actually that far away.

The whistle blew again, and that was it. No time for thinking left. I took a deep breath as I stepped in and felt my chest expand against the tight bandages. I stilled my shaking hands by shoving them in my jean pockets, let my body drop into the first space I saw. Home, for a few hours, was a red seat next to the window.

My life was starting with a train ride, it was all I wanted. All I needed. A new start, and a new binder.