Symphonies of You

0303.

LOVE THEME.

It was early to be awake. Maybe a little too early be this awake. But Jackie simply could not help herself. With her bag packed and ready on her bed, Jackie looked at herself in her mirror, checking if she was ready to leave. Stone belted denim utility trousers, a black belt around her waist, a normal white tee shirt tucked into them, her white ankle converse, and a pale pink hooded puffer jacket, she seemed about as ready as she could be at six in the morning. The sun was just barely rising outside, the bottom of Jackie's window filled with condensation, the grass in the garden white with frost. She put her phone, keys and wallet in the pockets of her puffer jacket, and then hoisted the bag into her back. Once outside her room, she closed her door, and, as noiselessly as she could, walked downstairs. No one was awake, all the doors to all the rooms shut firmly and the living room and kitchen void of people. Jackie didn't even spare her house a last glance before unlocking the front doors and stepping outside. She locked them both, almost not able to stop smiling, and then she turned on her heels, and walked towards the bus stop at Battersea Arts Centre.

Cars and people were rushing to work around her, London quiet in its own way. No one was talking, but the sounds of London on a brisk late autumn surrounded Jackie, making her feel calm and at an odd sense of peace. White puffs of air escaped her mouth as she breathed, her nose freezing in the coldness November had brought. She warmed her nose with her hands; taking a glove off and wrapping it around her nose every once in a while when it got bad. But she didn't have to do that for long. Bus 77 arrived at the stop, and using her Oyster card, Jackie got onboard. She took it all the way to Vauxhall Bus Station, spending those 15 minutes on the bus listening to one of the playlists Harry had made public on Spotify. I Don't Think You Know Me by The Monkees played from her headset as she strolled towards the Vauxhall tube station, getting ready to jump on the Northbound Victoria train so she could get off at King's Cross St Pancras station.

Nerves crept up on her as she entered her second to last destination for the day. She had never taken the Eurostar before; the train that connected London to Paris. To be fair, she had never been outside England, so taking it made everything inside her flip over in nervousness. She looked around for the ticket counter, knowing that since she was so anxious already, buying the ticket from an actual person and not a machine where she had no idea what to click on, would be the best option. Walking up to it, she stood in the queue for quite some time, waiting for her turn. Her phone vibrated with a notification, Forever by The Beach Boys playing as she fished it out of her pocket, she saw it was a snapchat from Harry. Trying not to grin too widely, she opened her phone, and then the snap.