Train Tracks

2

"What are you reading?"

Nina looked at me expectantly, and I noticed how wide her eyes were. They were like Owl eyes. "Um, it's Carrie, by Stephen King."

"Oh cool, I love Stephen King...Carrie is one of his best works."

I coughed a little bit. "Thats probably true... but have you ever read The Shining?"

"Of course...there's something about Stephen King's early books that make them special."

Nina was really a great person to talk to. I like how she has so much confidence in everything she does, and how she laughs at things I say even if I didn't think they were that funny. It was so easy to talk to her that I didn't realize the train stopped again until someone else opened the curtain to our cubicle, asking to sit down.

We both looked up at the boy, nodding our heads "yes". He took a seat next to Nina and put his duffel bag down at his feet. "My name's Danny, it's nice to meet you both." 

Danny seemed like an all-american poster-boy. He wore a tee shirt for the US Navy and his courteous smile showed very white teeth. He also had a strong, firm handshake. The kind of handshake that makes you want to respect the guy.

After Danny let go, he took Nina's hand and kissed the back of it, like an actual gentleman. In all honesty I was very impressed with his chivalry. "Well aren't you a sweetheart," Nina smiled. "I'm Nina Smith."

"A beautiful name for a beautiful girl," Danny smiled the white-teeth smile again, and then looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to introduce myself.

"Oh, my name's Mitchell. Um, Mitchell Addison." I pulled at the collar of my tee shirt. It was hard to look him in the eyes, he was so polite.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Mitchell. Or should I call you Mitch?"

"Either is fine."

"Well okay, Mitch it is. And you," he looked at Nina, "Well I can't really shorten Nina...how about Smitty? For Smith."

"That sounds great..I love it," she smiled at him again. 

"Great...Mitch and Smitty. You see, I give my friends nicknames, and you two seem real nice, like people I could really get along with. So you get nicknames."

"Well, that means a lot to me...to us both," Nina couldn't stop smiling at the guy...pretty-boy-Danny over here must be a real ladykiller back home.

"Uh...yeah," I cleared my throat and nodded at him.

The train started to move again and Danny put in earbuds to listen to music, closing his eyes. Nina smiled at me and moved over to the seat next to mine, "I'll let him have some room to lie down. You could tell he seemed awful tired."

She was right. Even through the charming act, his eyes were pretty bloodshot. She always seemed to put others' needs ahead of her own, and that amazed me.

She moved my guitar to the floor and put her legs out to the third seat of our row, her back leaning against my right arm. she took out a small notebook from her yellow backpack and a pencil. I looked over her shoulder and saw she was sketching Danny, lying across the three seats of the other row, sleeping like a child. his left earbud fell out, and you could hear the faint sound of a piano playing from it.

"When I see something this natural and real, I like to sketch it out..,this is human life in its most simplistic form," She whispered to me. I guess she saw me watching her.

"That's...beautiful," I whispered back. I watched the pencil in her left hand move across the page with ease, matching the image to the scene perfectly. It was very calming to watch Nina sketch.

When she finished, she flipped the page to a fresh blank one and started to draw a face. When she added more detail, I realized that the face was mine. I smiled a little bit, knowing she was sketching it by memory. Once she finished, she wrote Mitchell at the bottom and then tore it out of the book. She folded the piece of paper and handed it to me. 

"Human life in its simplest form," she smiled at me. She put the notebook and pencil back into the yellow backpack and put in a pair of earbuds of her own, tuning out any other noise.

I leaned my head against the window, feeling the bumps of the train on its tracks. I closed my eyes for a bit, taking a deep breath. In, and out. I finally took my phone out of my pocket and saw 7 text messages from Taylor. Mitchell, I swear to God this, and Mitchell, I swear to God that...

I guess life could be easier if I just left her...but that's the thing. Life isn't easy. It's not simple. Nina's sketches are probably as close to human life being simple as it's gonna get.

It's not that Taylor is aggravating all the time...on her good days, she can be a really nice and sincere person. I like that Taylor...that's the Taylor that motivates me to stay in the relationship. But I swear, if Taylor had an ounce of compassion left in her, it was only on a good day.

I ignored the messages and put my phone back into my pocket, leaning my head against the window again. At that moment, I completely forgot about Taylor...all I could think of was Danny sleeping across three seats, and Danny listening to piano music, and Nina's sketches, and how she was left-handed, and how she liked Stephen King...and her bright, yellow backpack with lots of small pins on the front pocket...and Nina's back against my right arm...and...

That's the part where I fell asleep.

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