“Your Train! My Hair!”
They are at Greenwich train station one summer night in London. The platform was almost empty, just a few travelers waiting for the last train out of Greenwich across the river back into the city. They wait for his train, these two twenty somethings. They had been dating for six months. This Indian American girl from California and this British Asian lad from Liverpool. They see the train pull up into the station so they hug goodbye. He whispers in her ear, “I love you,” for the first time. She feels the warmth of the words travel into her ear, down into her chest, into her whole body. The train stops and the doors open. All she could say was, “Your train!” As they pull away from each other her hair gets caught in the buttons on the sleeve of his jacket and then she softly cries, “My hair!” He helps her quickly undo her hair from the buttons. He pulls away and jumps on his train and as the doors close they wave goodbye to one another. Her feet touch the ground. She can feel them on the platform. She can still feel the warmth in her whole body. As she starts to walk home the warmth stays, her eyes are wide, her face open and the smile never leaves. The words would come later that summer when she could no longer contain the feeling. But for now, the dark road below her, the street lamp guiding her way and a warm London summer night.
