The Train To Nowhere

chapter 17 - unrequited

I rose from my bed presently and since it was eight o'clock and I knew Mum nor Zara would be awake, I took advantage of the opportunity and slipped downstairs. It was only just getting light, and shadows still loomed over the kitchen floor facing the sun. I threw my mattress sheet into the empty washing machine. Don't ask. Then I started it and ran back upstairs to play on my phone for a couple more hours before I came downstairs for breakfast.

"Enyi?" Mum called me as we ate breakfast a few hours later, "Why is there only one sheet in the wash?"

I hesitated, thinking quickly of a lie to tell. If I told her it was just because it needed washing she would ask why I hadn't put my whole bed sheet set in there. So I thought of something easily reasonable.

"I spilt orange juice on it this morning when I brought some up to my room. It left a big stain so I put it on a wash when I came downstairs. Is that okay?"

"Of course," Mum replied, believing the white lie. There was no reason to question something so plausible anyway. She hung the damp bed sheet up over the kitchen door to dry. Zara gave me a glance across the table while she poured her cereal out of the family-sized box and into the bowl. The hundreds of corn pops falling in scattered over loudly. It was probably nothing but something about the look in her eyes bespoke suspicion. She reached for the carton of milk on the table and then poured herself a generous serving, the corn pops crackling under the liquid. She reached for her spoon. It was odd for her to even care about much going on in my life. Then I remembered not long ago when she walked in on me, and that talk she gave me when Rosie came round... I quickly averted eye contact and hung my head over my cereal.

* * *

The days after that dragged on. School was boring and completely not worth recounting, but Rosie still kept popping up in my dreams and I could not keep my mind off her. I recognised her familiar, colourful backpack as we walked around school, and instead of getting relief to see my friend and running over to her to talk, I got nervous and my heart sped up. When anything to do with music she liked or even any of her hobbies like clarinet or guitar came up in conversation I'd think of her and blush. And I was more see-through now to Noah than ever before. Isaac constantly teased me and Noah was egging me on like I had to make my move any moment. There was something particularly strange about their teasing though, because for so long I had known it was all bullshit. Now what they were saying was true, it didn't feel annoying and stupid, but embarrassing and uncomfortable.

Two weeks later, I was at breaking point - skating over thin ice. When you fall through ice, the most important thing to remember is to get out of the water as fast you can, because the water can close back up above you fast. With Rosie now, I felt like I was anxiously treading water in a hole through the ice, desperate to do something before the opportunity closed soon like a ceiling. She was far away from me and floating in the sky in her new, independent, blue-haired world. And I was falling further for her, to the point where even our friendship was affected.

"You going on this trip, then?" Noah said to me as we practised our defending in the enormous, empty sports hall.

"Yeah," I paused to catch my breath. "My mum kind of struggled getting the deposit in this week, but I asked her if I could put some of my savings towards it. Of course, she wouldn't let me though." We'd been bouncing back and forth across each other for the last hour, and sweat was dripping off our skin. I scratched my head. "You?"

"I guess. It does sound like a pretty cool opportunity, and plus-" Noah saw me reaching from behind him and pivoted, catching me out and then running to take a shot and scoring. He bounced on his toes and took a breath of satisfaction, "I heard the train has top-notch facilities."
"What do you mean?"