• Mae •
The roaring of the metal wheels scraping against the metal track was loud in Mae's ears. The previous amount of time that she had spent on the train had made it easy for her to drown it out and ignore it. It was nowhere out of the ordinary for her to be on the train, every Friday she rode it from Lowell to Boston. Every Sunday night, it was the same ride back.
When Maisie was three, her parents had separated, and when she was six, they officially divorced. So now, with parents who live far enough away that she couldn't walk between houses, full time jobs, and shared custody, she took the train between houses. It became a solo task once she turned fourteen, so as a nearly eighteen year-old, she was very used to the process.
When Maisie was sixteen, she began noticing a boy about her age that would be on the train at least once or twice a month while she would ride. Sometimes he would sit alone, AirPods in his ears and ignoring everything around him. Sometimes he would have friends with him. But for the most part, he was like Mae, alone. He didn't seem to mind, always excited about where he was going, a clear contrast to Mae's mood, knowing that she was switching houses, but she would be just as lonely in both.
She found it hard to make friends when she was never in town to hang out with them, even harder when her mothers house, which she lives in during the week, was either empty and therefore, she was not allowed to have company over, or it was bustling with the busy work life of her mother and company would be distracting.
Now that's not to say that she never had anyone over, it was just extremely rare and even harder given her circumstances. It was even harder to make friends at her dad's house though, the fact that she didn't go to school and only spent 2 days a week there was not in her favor. She had occasionally had some of her school mates over to her dads house, but it was hard to plan when the train ride was an hour and most of her friends parents didn't want to drive that far super often. She did enjoy her life, however, no matter how much it may seem like she would be unhappy, the only unhappy part was the long ass train rides and how much her mother worked.
Maisie looked up from her phone, headphones softly playing a song that she didn't know the name of. She noticed that, once again, the boy had been taking the train down to Boston. He alway got off at the same stop as her, but was quick to exit and get lost in the crowd of the station. The few times that she had seen him on her way back up to Lowell, he was more somber and he got off prior to Mae's stop. She'd never paid much attention to when he got off, just that when she inevitably got up to leave, he was no longer there.
This time, however, he was not alone. He sat with two other boys, similar in appearance to him. Close enough to have been triplets, but she didn't stare long as she didn't want to scare them off. Sure, she had never talked to the boy, but he was a constant in her world and even if he was unaware, she was appreciative of him.
The train's PA system went off and a voice announced that their next stop would be Boston. Mae took this as her cue to begin to gather her belongings and get ready to leave, not wanting to spend more time than she needed to getting off the train. She had learned the hard way that they don't wait for you to get off when you're supposed to.
The boys did the same, making sure that their jackets and phones were on them and that they weren't forgetting anything, although they had much less that they could forget compared to Mae. One of the boys caught her eye as the train slowed, shooting her a soft smile before returning to the conversation with the others.
In year and a half that Mae had been aware of the boy on the train, they'd never once made eye contact or even acknowledged each other, so suddenly being noticed by his... brother? Yeah, definitely his brother. Being noticed by his brother was a sure fire way to mess with her head.
Ignoring the feeling that was settling in her stomach, she grabbed her bag, turned her music up slightly to drown out the ruckus that would surely begin to seep into the train as the doors opened, and prepared to make the short walk from the station to her fathers home.
This was her time to reflect, plan what she would be doing this weekend, and pray to God that she would get into college somewhere far away so that she'd never have to take that godforsaken train anywhere ever again. She didn't need anybody to distract her, and especially not the boy on the train or his brothers. They were just about the only thing that she could count on with her changing schedules, but she had no desire to ever make it anything more than a passing fancy that she forgot about by the time she opened her fathers front door.
{note: did some editing, putting them back up now. sorry that ur gonna get a few repeat chapters}
