Never Kiss Your Roommate

One

Evelyn

Long train rides, to me, had always felt a little bit like slipping out of reality.

There was something about the smooth glide of the wheels on the rails and the monotonous hum of the engine, the way there was nothing interesting to focus on except the landscape outside and the bored faces of other passengers, that made it so easy to get lost in my fantasy.

All I had to do was close my eyes and I was in another time, another place, another one of those lives I had lived vicariously through the pages of some tattered paperback. I could be a young farm girl on her way into the city for the first time. Or maybe a detective on his way to a small town where he would investigate a mysterious murder. Or maybe some aristocrat's daughter sent off to marry an unknown spouse—a noblewoman, of course, because although I had a vivid imagination, it wasn't that creative—the ambient noise of the train morphing into the rattling of a carriage across cobblestones in my mind.

It was all there, a whole world inside my head in which to immerse myself, and once I got bored of it, I could simply dive into the next one.

That was, unless the train came to a stop.

Right now, it stood in a train station somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the doors open to spit out people whose travel ended here. I blinked open my eyes and stifled a yawn behind my hand as I looked out at the platform, watching as people kissed their loved ones good-bye or hello while others strolled off alone.

Not many passengers were left around me and the announcement about the train's departure that crackled through the speakers led me to the conclusion that no one else would be getting on—until a boy suddenly skidded inside, his large suitcase almost getting stuck between the closing doors.

He turned around, swearing under his breath when the duffel bag he had slung across his shoulder got caught on one of the seats. After heaving his suitcase into the overhead carrier, he slumped down on a seat on the left-hand side, level with where I was sitting. His third piece of luggage, a large backpack that looked like it was stuffed full to the very top, he placed on the seat next to him. Only then did he release a relieved exhale, one hand coming up to brush aside the strands of unruly brown hair that had fallen into his eyes. After what I assumed had to be an impressive sprint to the train platform, there was a bright flush that spread from his pale cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears.

The train left the station with a steadily increasing rumbling sound, the landscape outside turning into a blur of browns and greens once again, the sky a steely gray that promised rain. I hoped that it would wait until I reached my destination.

My destination. So far, I had managed to distract myself from the looming unknown, but now, with nightfall fast approaching and only a few stations left until the train would reach it, an anticipatory shiver ran down my spine.

Luckily, a loud rustling sound ripped me out of my thoughts before panic truly set in. In the reflection of the window, I could see the boy digging around in his backpack until he finally pulled out a paperback book. A quiet gasp tore free from my throat when I recognized the cover: a train driving down snowy train tracks, headlights cutting through the night.

In the deserted carriage, the noise was loud enough to make the boy look up, shooting me a confused glance. His bewilderment seemed to ease when his eyes drifted down to the book I was balancing in my lap, my train ticket serving as a bookmark after I had put it down an hour ago—a similarly tattered copy of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

His lips quirked into the hint of a smile. "Good book, huh?"

"It's one of my favorites," I said. I was silent for a moment but then, because I hadn't had anyone to talk to in over five hours, much less anyone my age who also happened to read, I asked, "What chapter are you on?"