Mind the Gap | ✔️

January 14 @ 9:33 A.M.: Evan

"The pink sofa is mine!"

The elevated volume of my voice made the teenage girl on the seat opposite mine look up with an irritated frown.

I gave her an apologetic smile. There had been no doubt about it, she was right—subway passengers shouldn't scream into their phones. I lowered my voice. "The sofa is mine, not Helen's. I bought it before we married, and she—"

"Relax, Evan," Carl said at the other end of the line. "Yes, the sofa is yours, and you've moved it to your new apartment. It's safe from your ex. Helen won't break down your door and steal it. Remember what we went through. Just be firm. Under no circumstances let her talk you into giving it back. Even though that thing is ugly as hell."

"Let her talk me into giving it back? Never!" I shook my head with vigor. The time when I would fall for Helen's charms was over. The very thought of her cuddling with someone else on my precious comfortable sofa made me cringe with disgust.

And it wasn't ugly. It was just pink.

"Next stop: Charles/MGH." The automated announcement on the train's speakers sounded like my ex—reproachful as if scorning the need to state the obvious.

"How is your new apartment, by the way?" Carl asked.

"Great. I do enjoy the distance from Helen." The long commutes from Alewife to the uni in downtown Boston were less enjoyable, though.

The teenager on the seat opposite mine frowned at me with a more than apparent disapproval. I lowered my voice again to almost a whisper. "You know what. Let me tell you all about it when I'm at the institute. See you there."

"See you." Carl hung up on me.

The train commutes are supposed to be pleasant. They should allow one to see nature, and human beings. Towns, and churches, and rivers. In fact, to see life. 

Yet as of late, they were the bane of my new existence without Helen. Always crammed into my seat, with some stranger's feet stuck between mine. And, if I was really unlucky, there'd be a sprawler sitting next to me.

Like today.

Trapped between my neighbor's ample, warm thigh and the hard, cold wall of the train on my other side, there was no way out of here. I found myself at the mercy of the man's sweet-smelling aftershave and his stench of stale cigarette smoke.

The vehicle decelerated, making the droplets on the window migrate forward as if they couldn't wait to get to the station.

The train stopped with a small jerk. The sprawler's leg rubbed against mine. He hummed—if in tune to his music or if with pleasure kindled by our contact, I did not know.

I coughed, giving free reign to the cold that had been my permanent companion since I'd begun my daily routine of commuting ten days ago.

I gazed out into the rainscape, trying to ignore the intrusive presence of my sprawling neighbor.

Another equally bright red train stood on the parallel track next to us. Its dusty windows were as wet as ours, and its passengers just as gray and drab as the ones next to me. 

Only one of them stood out. A girl. She had her hair dyed marshmallow blue. Her head moved back and forth in a regular rhythm. Fat, white AirPods nested in her ears.

I touched the cold glass of the window, all of a sudden grateful for the wonderfully unbreachable gap it formed between her and me. It was barely a foot wide, but it fortunately kept whatever she was listening to out of earshot—my sprawly neighbor delivered more than enough soundtrack for this commute.