I'm on a train that's stopped between stations. Not broken down - just waiting. The conductor made an announcement ten minutes ago, something about signal problems ahead, but the words crackled and faded before reaching my seat. Outside my window is nowhere in particular: not countryside, not city, just the ambient blur of places between places.
Three stops ago, I seemed certain of my destination. Two stops ago, I realized I might have boarded the wrong line. Now, suspended in this moment of neither arriving nor departing, I find myself wondering if destinations matter at all.
The map I've been following has folded and unfolded so many times that the creases have become more visible than the routes. North looks like east when I hold it this way. South becomes up when I turn it around. The colored lines that once seemed so distinct now bleed into one another at the corners.
A woman sits across from me reading a book in a language I don't recognize. The symbols look almost familiar, as if I might understand them if I just tilted my head at the right angle. She turns a page and catches me looking. We share a smile that acknowledges nothing in particular.
"Are we close?" I ask her.
"To what?" she replies.
A fair question. I haven't told her where I'm going. I'm not entirely sure I know myself.
My phone has five percent battery and no service. The time reads 3:47, but I can't remember if I set it to the time zone of where I started or where I'm heading. The last message I sent says "On my way," which feels both true and false simultaneously.
There's something freeing about this suspension. No decisions to make. No turns to take. Just the odd lightness of being temporarily undefined. I could be anyone going anywhere. All possibilities exist in this space between stations.
The train jolts slightly, a small mechanical shake that suggests movement is coming. Or maybe it's just sinking deeper into stillness. The other passengers don't react. They've adapted to this wait, or perhaps they were comfortable with it all along.
I realize I've been holding my breath and let it out slowly. My reflection in the window looks like someone I used to know. If I focus past it, I can see buildings in the distance, or maybe they're mountains. The light makes it hard to tell.
My ticket says Platform 10, Coach M, Seat 95. These coordinates located me precisely in the physical world, yet I've never felt less located. If someone asked me right now, "Where are you?" I wouldn't know how to answer. I don't know where I am geographically nor intentionally.
The woman has closed her book. She places it on the seat beside her and looks out the window.
"Beautiful," she says, though I'm not sure what she's referring to. The landscape is ordinary, unremarkable.
"What is?" I ask.
"The waiting," she replies. "The not knowing what comes next."
I nod as if I understand, and perhaps I do. There's a clarity in confusion if you stop fighting it. A direction in directionlessness.
The overhead speakers crackle again. This time, the message is clear: "We will be moving shortly. Next stop..."
But I don't catch the name of the next stop. It doesn't seem to matter. I'll either recognize it when I see it, or I won't. I'll either get off, or I'll stay on and see where the train takes me.
The woman picks up her book again but doesn't open it.
"Are you worried?" she asks. "About missing your stop?"
I consider this for a moment, watching as the first hints of movement appear outside the window. The world begins to slide by, slowly at first, then with gathering momentum.
"No," I say. "I'm not worried."
And it's true. In this moment of motion returning after stillness, of direction emerging from drift, I realize that being lost isn't the absence of a path. It's the presence of all possible paths, waiting to be chosen or not chosen.
The train picks up speed. We are moving again, going fast toward the next station and the one after that. I don't know which one is mine. I'm not even sure now I ever did.
And somehow, that doesn't really bother me.
The train moves now, making a low, steady sound. The woman across from me leans her head against the window. Her breath makes little foggy spots on the glass that disappear fast. Her book sits closed on her knees, the cover old and bent, like it's been on a long trip.
Outside, the blurry view turns into clear shapes: a platform, some people waiting under bright lights, a sign I can't read yet. The train slows down, brakes making a sharp noise. I wonder if this is her stop, if she'll get off and leave me with just her words in my head.
"Do you ever get off at the wrong stop on purpose?" I ask. The question surprises me myself, though I am the one asking.
She looks away from the window. Her eyes shine a little in the dim light. "Sometimes," she says. "It's the only way to see what's out there."
The doors open with a beep. Cool air comes in, smelling like rain and metal. She doesn't move yet. I don't either.
The train stops fully now. The platform outside is busy but quiet, like everyone's waiting for something they're not sure will come. The woman picks up her book and holds it tight, like it's more than just pages. She looks at me again.
"I got off once," she says. "A stop I didn't know. It was raining, and there was nothing there. Just a bench and a broken sign. I stayed anyway."
"Why?" I ask.
She shrugs. "Felt like I had to. Like the train wasn't going to show me anything new."
The doors are still open. People shuffle past, some getting on, some getting off. I look at my ticket again - Platform 10, Coach M, Seat 95. It tells me where I am, but not where I should be. My phone's dead now, so I can't check the time or send another "On my way" that doesn't mean much.
"Do you think this is a good stop?" I say.
She smiles, small and quick. "No such thing as good or bad stops. Just ones you take."
A man on the platform drops something - a bag, maybe - and it spills out. Papers and a little red toy car, with the number 95 on it, roll across the ground. He doesn't pick them up, just keeps walking. I watch the toy car sit there, alone.
The woman stands up. "This is mine," she says, stepping toward the door. She looks back once. "I'll see you at the next one, maybe."
Then she's gone, lost in the crowd. The doors close. The train starts moving again. I'm still here, ticket in hand, watching that little red car get smaller through the window.
The train pulls away from the platform. The little red toy car fades out of sight. I look down at my ticket again - Platform 10, Coach M, Seat 95. It's supposed to mean something, but it feels like words from someone else's life from another dimension.
The woman's gone now. Before she left, she said something that stuck with me. "This is Brooklyn," she told me, nodding toward the platform. "Halfway between the city and the coast. You're not far from either." Her voice was calm, like she was handing me a map I could actually use.
Brooklyn. I repeat it in my head. It's a real place, I know it. I'm somewhere real. For a second, I feel steady, like I know which way is up. The city behind me, maybe, or the coast ahead. I picture waves crashing, or tall buildings with lights. It's clear, almost sharp.
Then it's gone. My mind goes blank, like a page ripped out. Brooklyn - what's that? Where was I going? The ticket's still in my hand, but it's just numbers and letters again. My chest tightens. This happens sometimes. Things slip away, and I'm left grabbing at air.
I look around the train. Empty seats where the woman sat. Her book's not there anymore. Did she take it? Did she even have a book? I rub my eyes, trying to hold onto something - her face, her words. Brooklyn. Halfway. It's blurry now, like a dream I woke up from too fast.
The train slows again. The speaker crackles. "Next stop, Easton." The name hits me hard, like a monkey with drums is playing in my skull. Easton. That's mine. I don't know how I know, but I do. My hands shake as I grab my bag. The doors open, and I step out.
The platform's cold. A sign says "Easton" in big letters. I stand there, ticket crumpled in my fist, trying to remember or understand why this feels right. Brooklyn's gone from my head, and so is the woman. But Easton - it's here. It's now.
The platform at Easton is empty except for one person. A girl stands under the sign, her arms crossed tight, breath puffing out in little clouds. Snow falls hard around her, sticking to her coat and hair. She looks up as I step off the train, her eyes wide and worried.
"You're late," she says, her voice sharp but shaky. "I thought you weren't coming."
I stop, my bag heavy in my hand. Her face - it's like I've seen it before, but not clear. A picture is half-drawn in my head. "Sorry," I say, even though I don't know why I'm late or who she is.
As the word leaves my mouth, something flickers behind her eyes - realisation, maybe. Not surprise. Like she's heard this exact apology before.
She steps closer, snow crunching under her boots. "You okay? You look lost."
"I am," I say. It slips out, too honest. My head's still foggy from the train, from Brooklyn fading away. "I don't... I can't remember much."
Her frown deepens, but then her eyes soften, like she gets it. She pulls a box from her bag - a metal lunchbox, dented on one side. "Come on," she says. "Let's eat. Maybe it'll help."
We sit on a bench near the platform, snow piling up around us. Too much snow, like the world's burying itself. She opens the box. Inside's a simple dinner - bread, cheese, some sliced apples. She hands me a piece of bread. "I made it at home," she says. "Like always."
"Home?" I ask, taking a bite. The taste feels warm, familiar, but I can't place it.
She nods, watching me close. "Yeah. Where we live. You don't remember, do you?"
I shake my head slow. "I know you, but... not really. It's all mixed up."
She doesn't look surprised. "It happens sometimes," she says quiet. "You forget stuff. Me, the house, where you're going. But you always come back here. To Easton."
"Why?" I ask.
She smiles a little, sad but soft. "Because I'm here. That's enough for you, even when you don't know it."
The snow keeps falling, covering the tracks behind us. She doesn't explain more, just sits with me, sharing the food. I don't know her name, or how long she's waited, but her being here feels right. Like a dot on a map I lost.
I want to ask more questions, but something catches my eye - a woman passing by on the far end of the platform, her coat the same deep blue as the one on the train. She's not looking our way, but something in her walk seems familiar. Before I can focus, she's gone, disappeared into the stairwell.
"Did you see her?" I ask, pointing.
"Who?" The girl follows my gaze to the empty stairs.
"Nothing," I mutter. "Thought I recognized someone."
The girl studies my face. "From the train?"
I nod, and she sighs, standing up. "Come on. It's too cold to stay out here. Let's go home."
The sky's fully light now, a cold morning gray above the snow. We're walking home, the path clear under our boots. She's talking again, her voice soft but shaky. "Last summer, you fixed the ladder," she says. "It creaked too much, remember? You were so proud."
I try to picture it - a ladder, a step, my hands on a hammer. Nothing comes. "Yeah?" I say, but it's empty, gone before I can hold it.
She keeps going. "And that stray cat. You fed it every night 'til it stayed. Called it Coconut." She looks at me, waiting.
"Coconut," I repeat, testing it. Blank. My head's a wall. "I don't know," I say, quiet.
Her face crumples. She stops walking, hands over her eyes. A sob breaks out, loud and rough, like it's been trapped too long. "You don't remember," she says, voice breaking. "I keep telling you, and it's nothing. It's all gone." Tears fall fast, hitting the snow, and she's shaking, knees buckling a little.
I freeze. Guilt stabs me sharp. "I'm sorry," I say, useless. "I'm trying. I swear."
She's crying hard now, head down, hands clenched. "It's not fair," she chokes out. "I can't keep doing this."
Then the wind hits - a cold, hard gust, howling past us. It stings my face, kicks up snow, and she gasps, pulling her coat tight. Her sobs quiet, but tears still shine on her cheeks. "We can't stay here," she says, voice raw. She wipes her face with her sleeve, rough and quick. "It's too cold. Home's close."
She starts walking again, fast, like the wind's pushing her. I follow, my chest heavy. The snow swirls around us, and her back's stiff, head down. She's not talking now. Just moving. I want to say something, fix it, but I don't know how.
We reach the house, a small place with snow piled against the door. She pushes it open, and warm air hits me. Inside's plain - wood floor, a table, a couch with a blanket tossed over it. It feels like I should know it, but it's just shapes, no meaning.
She drops the lunchbox on the table, coat still on, and sits heavy on the couch. Her face is red from crying, eyes puffy. I stand there, awkward, then sit across from her in a chair. Snow melts off my boots, dripping quiet.
"You okay?" I ask, dumb but all I've got.
She laughs, short and bitter. "No. Are you?"
I shake my head. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
She looks at me, long and tired. "It's not new," she says. "You forget things. Big things. Me, this place, us. It comes and goes."
"Us?" I say, leaning forward. My heart's fast, like I'm close to something.
"Yeah," she says. "We're... together. I wait for you at Easton every time you leave. Sometimes you remember. Sometimes you don't." Her voice cracks, but no tears this time.
"What's your name?" I ask, hating that I need to.
She winces, like I've hit her. "Lila," she says. "I'm Lila."
"Lila," I repeat, and the name sits right on my tongue, even if the face across from me still feels like a stranger's.
I stare at the floor. Guilt's back, heavier. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I know," she says soft. "You never do. I just wish..." She stops, shakes her head. "Doesn't matter."
The room's quiet, just the wind outside rattling the windows. My eyes burn, tired from the train, the snow, all of it. She pulls the blanket over her legs. "Sleep," she says. "You need it. I do too."
I nod, too worn out to argue. I lie back in the chair, stiff but sinking in. She curls up on the couch, facing away. "Tomorrow," she mumbles. "Maybe tomorrow you'll know me."
"Maybe," I say, hoping it's true. My eyes close, and the dark takes me fast.
In my dreams, I'm back on the train. The woman in blue sits across from me, but now she's looking right at me, like she's waiting for me to recognize her.
"You know who I am," she says. It's not a question.
I stare at her face - the high cheekbones, the gray-flecked hair, the lines at the corners of her eyes that deepen when she smiles.
"Dr. Elaine Morgan," I say, the name surfacing from nowhere. "You're my doctor."
She nods, approving. "And what do we work on together, Alex?"
Alex. That's me. My name is Alex.
"My memory," I say. "The episodes. The forgetting."
She opens her book, flips through pages. "And what triggers them?"
"Stress." The word comes quickly. "Change. Uncertainty."
"Yes," she says. "And the train?"
I look around at the carriage, suddenly aware that we're the only ones here. "It's not real."
"No," she agrees. "It's a metaphor we developed together. A visualization technique. When you feel yourself starting to lose time, to lose memory, you imagine the train. It gives your mind somewhere to go while your conscious self reorients."
"But Lila is real," I say, desperate suddenly. "She's real."
Dr. Morgan's eyes soften. "Yes. Lila is very real. And very patient."
"I keep hurting her."
"You have a condition, Alex. Dissociative amnesia. It's not your fault."
"But I can get better," I insist. "You told me I could get better."
She closes her book. "Yes. With work. With time. With tools."
"Like the notebook," I say.
"Like the notebook," she agrees. "If you can remember it exists."
The train begins to fade around us. Dr. Morgan's voice grows distant.
"Find your notebook, Alex. Read it. Remember."
I wake up slow, my neck stiff from the chair. Sun's sneaking through the curtains, bright on the wood floor. Lila's already up, sitting on the couch with a mug in her hands. Steam curls from it. She looks at me, quiet, waiting.
"We met in middle school, didn't we?" I say, the words out before I think. It's clear in my head - lockers, a loud bell, her face younger but the same eyes.
Her mouth opens a little, surprised. "Yeah," she says, slow. "We did. You remember that?"
I nod. "It's all I've got. Kids running around, a classroom. You sat near me."
She smiles, small but real. "Front row. You threw paper at me once. Got detention."
I laugh, short. "Sounds like me." It feels good, knowing something solid.
"Alex," she says, and I start.
"You know my name," I say, then realize how stupid that sounds.
"Of course I do," she says, but there's no mockery in it. "Do you?"
"Yeah," I say, the dream of Dr. Morgan fresh enough that I still remember this basic fact about myself. "I'm Alex."
Her smile widens. "Good morning, Alex."
She sets the mug down. "Let's just stay here today," she says. "Talk. See what sticks."
We do. Hours pass on that couch. She tells me about middle school - how we traded snacks at lunch, how I drew dumb cartoons in her notebook. I see bits of it, fuzzy but there. "You were loud," she says. "Always talking. I liked that."
"Still loud?" I ask.
"Sometimes," she says, grinning. "When you're not forgetting everything."
I ask her stuff too. "What was I like back then?"
"Funny. Stubborn. You'd fight anyone who messed with me." Her eyes go soft, remembering.
The day stretches on. We eat bread from her kitchen, sit by the window watching snow melt. She keeps it light - stories about school trips, a time I fell in the mud. I laugh, and it's easy, but anything past middle school's a blank wall. She doesn't push, just stays close.
I feel a question nagging at me. "Lila," I say, "do I see a doctor about this? The memory stuff?"
She hesitates, then nods. "Dr. Morgan. Elaine Morgan. She works with you on techniques to manage the episodes."
The name hits me like a punch. "I saw her. On the train."
Lila frowns. "You couldn't have. She's in the city."
"No," I say, "not really on the train. In my head. I was dreaming about her last night." I tell Lila about the dream, about the train as a visualization technique, about what Dr. Morgan said regarding my condition.
Lila listens, eyes widening. "That's... that's exactly what she tells you in your sessions," she says. "You've never remembered her this clearly between episodes before."
"Dissociative amnesia," I say, the term from my dream still with me. "That's what she called it."
Lila nods. "That's what they diagnosed you with three years ago." She takes a deep breath. "After the accident."
"What accident?" I ask, but even as the words leave my mouth, I can feel my mind shying away, pulling back from whatever she's about to tell me.
Lila sees it too. "Maybe we shouldn't," she says. "Dr. Morgan says pushing too hard can make it worse."
I nod, partly relieved. "Tell me about us instead," I say. "How long have we been together?"
She softens again. "Six years. We moved in together after college."
"And I... leave sometimes? But come back to Easton?"
"Yes," she says. "When it gets bad, when you start to forget, you feel restless. You say you need to go find yourself. Sometimes you call from different places. Sometimes you just show up at the station." She looks down. "Sometimes it's days. Sometimes it's weeks."
"And you always wait," I say, not a question.
"Always," she confirms.
By night, we're still talking, voices low. "This was nice," she says, leaning back. "Even if it's just old stuff."
"It's something," I say. "Better than nothing."
She nods, eyes tired but warm. "Yeah. Better than nothing."
All day, while we talk, she's searching. She moves quiet, checking shelves, flipping cushions, opening boxes. I'm stuck on middle school - her laugh, the mud - but I notice her hands shaking a little.
"What's missing?" I ask, voice low.
She stops, holding an old mug. "A notebook," she says. "You wrote in it when you'd forget. Not just facts - feelings, stories. It was yours."
"Mine?" I say, leaning forward.
"Yeah," she says. "You'd read it to find yourself again. I haven't seen it in weeks." She looks at me, eyes tired. "I need to get groceries. Stay here, okay?"
I nod. She grabs her coat and leaves, the door shutting soft. The house feels big, empty. I sit, then stand. Something pulls me to the kitchen. I open a drawer - spoons, nothing else. Then a cabinet, high up. Behind a stack of plates, my fingers brush leather. A notebook, small, worn. I pull it out, heart fast.
I hid this. I know it, sudden and sure. Under the plates, where she wouldn't look. I sit at the table, open it. My writing, sloppy, spilling across pages. Not a list - essays, messy and real.
First one: "I forgot her name today. She cried, and I wanted to fix it. She's the only thing that feels like home, even when I don't know why." My chest hurts reading it. Another: "Middle school's all I've got sometimes. Her face then, so clear, but now's a fog. I hate this." Pages later: "I'm scared I'll lose her in my head forever. Don't let that happen."
I wrote this to hold on. Hid it so she wouldn't see how bad it gets. The words blur - my eyes are wet. I flip more, soaking it in, waiting for her to come back.
But then I turn a page and find something else. A newspaper clipping, folded small, tucked into the binding. I open it carefully, the paper thin and yellow.
"LOCAL ACCIDENT CLAIMS TWO LIVES," the headline reads. I scan the text, pulse quickening.
"A head-on collision Thursday night resulted in the deaths of Margaret and David Chen of Easton. Their daughter, Lila Chen, 23, was in the backseat and sustained minor injuries. The driver of the other vehicle, Alexander Reeves, 24, was taken to Memorial Hospital in critical condition."
My hands are shaking now. I keep reading.
"Witnesses report that Reeves' car crossed the center line unexpectedly. Police are investigating whether alcohol was involved."
I stare at the names. Alexander Reeves. That's me. And Lila - I killed her parents. My stomach twists violently.
I flip wildly through the notebook, looking for more. Two pages later, I find my own writing again, the pen pressed so hard it nearly tore the paper.
"I killed them. I killed her parents. It was raining. I looked down at my phone for ONE SECOND. Dr. Morgan says that's why I forget - my brain trying to protect me from what I did. But I don't deserve protection. Lila lost everything because of me. And she STILL LOVES ME. How is that possible? How can she look at me and not hate me?"
Outside, snow's falling again. She's still gone. I keep reading, alone with myself.
I sit at the table, notebook open, pages rough under my fingers. The house is silent, snow tapping the window. She's still out, and I'm lost in my own words. I turn a page, and it hits me hard.
"I should burn this," I wrote, ink smudged like my hand shook. "Take it outside, light it up, let it go. Then leave. Walk far - somewhere she can't find me. She'd stop hurting if I was gone. Every time I forget, it's like I cut her again. I see it in her eyes, and it's killing me."
My breath catches. I keep reading, the words clawing at me. "But I can't do it. I'm not brave enough. I'd get lost out there, worse than here. And she'd wait anyway - stupid, stubborn Lila, standing at Easton 'til I came back. So I didn't burn it. Didn't leave. Just hid it under the plates, where she wouldn't look. Coward."
I stare at the page, hands trembling. It's me - angry, scared, stuck. I wanted to run to save her, but I couldn't. I hid it instead, kept it secret, stayed. The essay ends there, half a page blank, like I gave up writing it.
I flip further, and find a newer entry, the ink less faded.
"Dr. Morgan says forgiveness isn't something you ask for - it's something you earn. How do I earn back two lives? How do I earn the right to be loved by the person whose world I destroyed? She says Lila has her own journey, her own choices to make. That I can't decide for her what she needs."
"But I see her watching me when I start to slip away. The fear in her eyes - not fear OF me, but FOR me. She's afraid I'll vanish for good one day. And maybe that would be better for her. But I'm selfish. I keep coming back. Because she's the only home I have left."
Outside, the snow's thicker, piling up. She's not back yet. I close the notebook, but the words won't leave me. Burn it. Leave. Coward. They twist in my gut. I don't know what to do with them, so I just sit, waiting, the weight of it all pressing down.
Then I hear it - the soft click of the door opening. Lila steps in, stomping snow from her boots, a bag of groceries in her arms. She sees me at the table, the notebook closed in front of me, and freezes.
"You found it," she says, voice careful.
"Yes." My throat is tight. "And the newspaper article."
She puts the groceries down slowly, unwrapping her scarf. "I was going to tell you. When it seemed like you could handle it."
"I killed your parents," I say, the words burning like acid.
She doesn't flinch. "It was an accident, Alex."
"Why?" I ask, standing up. My hands are fists at my sides. "Why would you stay with me after that? Why would you wait at that station every time I disappear? Why would you tell me stories and make me bread and pretend that we're okay?"
"Because we are," she says, stepping toward me. "In our way, we are okay."
"I ruined your life!"
"You think I don't know that?" Her voice rises suddenly, startling me. "You think I haven't felt that rage, that grief? Of course I have!" She takes a deep breath, calming herself. "But I made a choice, Alex. I chose to forgive you. Not forget - never forget. But forgive."
"Why?" I ask again, quieter now.
"Because I loved you before." She moves closer. "And because you're not the only one who's broken. We're broken together. My therapist calls it trauma bonding. Says it's not healthy. Maybe she's right." She touches the notebook with her fingertips. "But it's what we have."
I sink back into the chair, the fight draining out of me. "I want to go."
"I know," she says. "You always do, when you remember."
"No," I say. "I mean I want to go see Dr. Morgan. I want to get better. Really better, not just... existing like this."
Lila's eyes widen. "You've never asked for that before."
"I'm asking now," I say. "Will you help me?"
She sits down across from me, hands flat on the table. "Yes," she says. "I'll help you."
I sit with the notebook, snow outside, Lila still across from me. The accident, her parents, my condition - it's all clear now, sharp and painful. Dr. Morgan once told me, according to my notes, that healing starts with facing what hurts. So I decide to make a plan.
"I'm staying," I tell Lila. "No more disappearing on trains. No more you waiting at stations. I need to be here, dealing with this."
She nods, cautious hope in her eyes. I grab a scrap of paper, small as my thumb. Pen shakes as I write: "Lila. Accident. Forgiveness. Stay." It's all I need if I forget again. I fold it, shove it in my pocket.
"It won't be easy," I say. "I'll forget again. I'll want to run."
"I know," she says, taking my hand. "But maybe it'll be different, knowing you chose to stay."
The next day, we call Dr. Morgan. She agrees to see me - us - the following week. "Recovery isn't linear," she reminds me when I tell her about finding the notebook. "But recognition is always progress."
That night, Lila and I sit by the window, watching snow fall on the silent street. "Tell me something real," I ask her. "Something I've forgotten."
She thinks, then smiles. "You make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs. Terrible ones - no one would know they're dinosaurs. But you insist they are."
I laugh, surprised. "Dinosaur pancakes? Really?"
"Really," she confirms. "You said life's too short for round pancakes."
It's such a small thing, ridiculous even. But it feels like a gift - a piece of myself returned. "I'd like to make you dinosaur pancakes again someday," I say.
"I'd like that too," she replies.
Three months later, we're sitting in Dr. Morgan's office. She's exactly as I dreamed her - gray-streaked hair, kind eyes, book always in hand. My progress is slow. Some days I still wake up confused, Lila a stranger beside me. But the episodes are shorter now. I have techniques, medications, the notebook I no longer hide.
"The train visualization is helping?" Dr. Morgan asks.
"Yes," I say. "When I feel myself slipping, I picture the train stopping. Not forever - just pausing. Giving me time."
She nods, pleased. "And how are you, Lila? This affects you too."
Lila squeezes my hand. "Better. There are still hard days. Days I miss my parents so much it's hard to look at him." She says this plainly, not to hurt but because it's true. "But there are more good days now."
After the session, we walk through the city streets together, heading toward the train station that will take us back to Easton. Not to escape this time - just to go home.
"I've been thinking," I say as we wait on the platform. "About forgiveness."
"What about it?" Lila asks.
"You've given me so much of it. Years of it. But I'm just starting to forgive myself."
She watches a train that isn't ours arrive and depart. "That's the harder kind," she says.
"Does it ever feel like too much?" I ask. "Carrying both of our burdens?"
She considers this carefully. "Sometimes. But you're carrying more of your own now. I feel it."
Our train approaches. We board together, find seats side by side. As we pull away from the station, I notice a woman across the aisle, reading a book. For a moment, my heart skips - but no, it's not Dr. Morgan. Just a stranger with gray-streaked hair and a book. I release the breath I didn't know I was holding.
The train pulls away from the city, gathering speed as urban landscapes blur into suburbs, then into the spaces between places. Lila rests her head on my shoulder, her breathing steady. I think about how we've been moving forward these past months - in therapy, in healing, in small daily victories like remembering to buy milk without being reminded.
"You're quiet," she says, not lifting her head.
"Just thinking about how far we've come," I say.
She makes a small noise, something between agreement and caution. We've learned not to celebrate progress too loudly, as if doing so might scare it away.
The conductor announces our next stop. Not ours - we're three away from Easton. But something about the name tugs at me.
"Westfield," the speakers crackle. "Next stop, Westfield."
My body goes rigid. Lila feels it, lifts her head to look at me.
"Alex? What is it?"
"Westfield," I repeat. "Halfway between the city and the coast."
Her eyes narrow with concern. "Have you been there before?"
I try to answer, but my mind presents me with an image: a woman with a book in an unfamiliar language, saying those exact words. "Halfway between the city and the coast. You're not far from either."
"I think so," I say slowly. "During one of my... episodes."
The train begins to slow. Through the window, I can see the platform approaching - unremarkable, just like all the others. But something pulls at me, a strange gravity I can't explain.
"I need to get off," I say suddenly.
Lila's concern deepens. "This isn't our stop, Alex."
"I know. But I need to see it. I think... I think it might help me remember something important."
She hesitates. We've developed routines, safety measures against the unpredictability of my condition. Spontaneous detours aren't part of the plan.
"I'll come back," I promise. "Just give me an hour. Take the train to Easton, and I'll catch the next one. Please."
The train is stopping now. Passengers are gathering their things.
"I don't think this is a good idea," she says, her voice tight with worry.
"Please," I repeat. "I'll call you the whole time. You'll know exactly where I am."
The doors open. I can feel time slipping away.
"One hour," she finally says. "If you're not on the next train, I'm coming back for you."
I kiss her quickly and step off before I can change my mind. The doors close behind me, and I watch Lila's worried face disappear as the train pulls away.
Westfield station is nearly empty. A few people hurry toward the exit, but I stand still, trying to recall why this place feels significant. I close my eyes, attempting the visualization techniques Dr. Morgan taught me. The woman on the train with the unreadable book. The conversation we had. But it's like trying to hold water - the details slip away the harder I grasp for them.
I walk to a bench and sit down. My phone shows three bars of signal, a small comfort. I can call Lila if I need to. The station clock reads 4:17 PM. The next train to Easton will arrive in forty-five minutes. Plenty of time to explore whatever pulled me here.
But as I stand to leave the platform, dizziness washes over me. The world tilts sideways, colors blending together. I grip the bench to steady myself, heart pounding. This hasn't happened in weeks. Not since before we increased my medication.
"Breathe," I whisper to myself, using Dr. Morgan's techniques. "Just breathe."
The dizziness passes, but leaves something worse in its wake - a familiar fog creeping at the edges of my mind. The first sign of an episode approaching. No. Not here. Not now.
I fumble in my pocket for the folded paper, the one with the essential words: "Lila. Accident. Forgiveness. Stay." But my fingers find nothing. Did I leave it at home? On the train? Panic rises in my throat.
I need to call Lila. I pull out my phone, but the screen is black. Dead battery. Impossible - it was at 60% when we boarded. I press the power button desperately, but nothing happens.
Calm down, I tell myself. Think clearly. I just need to get on the next train to Easton. Lila will be waiting. She always waits.
The station seems emptier now, shadows lengthening as afternoon fades into evening. I walk to the schedule board, searching for the next departure.
But the board is blank. No trains listed. No destinations. Just empty spaces where information should be.
"Excuse me," I say to a station attendant passing by. "When's the next train to Easton?"
He looks at me strangely. "Easton? There's no stop called Easton on this line."
My mouth goes dry. "That's impossible. I just came from the city. We passed through here on the way to Easton."
The attendant shakes his head. "This is the end of the line, sir. No trains go further east from here."
I step back, struggling to process his words. This doesn't make sense. Lila and I were just on the train together. She continued on to Easton. Our home is in Easton.
Unless...
No. I refuse to believe this is another delusion. Easton is real. Lila is real. Our life together is real.
"Is there a phone I can use?" I ask, my voice strained.
The attendant points to a payphone near the waiting area. I thank him and hurry over, digging in my pocket for change. My fingers close around a few coins and something else - a small rectangle of stiff paper. I pull it out, expecting to see my note, but instead find a train ticket.
Platform 7, Coach CR, Seat 95.
My blood runs cold. This isn't the ticket Lila and I used today. This is older, worn at the edges, like it's been handled many times. Like the one from my earliest memories of the train, before Westfield, before Easton.
I insert coins into the payphone and dial Lila's number from memory. Each ring stretches into eternity. Finally, a click.
"Hello?" Her voice is distant, staticky.
"Lila, it's me," I say, relief washing over me. "Something's wrong. I'm stuck at Westfield station, and they're saying Easton doesn't exist."
Silence stretches between us. Then: "Who is this?"
The world stops. "Lila, it's Alex. Your Alex."
Another pause. "I don't know anyone named Alex."
My legs nearly give out. I lean against the wall, struggling to breathe. "This isn't funny, Lila. Please. We were just on the train together. We've been seeing Dr. Morgan. We're getting better."
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice gentle but firm. "I think you have the wrong number."
"No, wait - " But the line goes dead.
I stand frozen, the phone still pressed to my ear. This can't be happening. I call again, hands shaking so badly I miss the numbers twice. When I finally get through, an automated voice informs me the number is no longer in service.
Night has fallen outside the station windows. The attendant is gone. I'm alone on the platform, the emptiness echoing around me. I sink onto a bench, head in my hands, trying to make sense of what's happening.
Is this an episode? The worst one yet? Have I fabricated Lila, Dr. Morgan, our progress together - all of it?
Or is this the delusion, and Easton the reality?
I close my eyes, attempting to use the train visualization. But instead of stopping the train, controlling it, I see myself on it - endlessly moving, never arriving. The woman with the book sits across from me, but her face keeps changing. Sometimes she's Dr. Morgan. Sometimes she's Lila. Sometimes she's someone I don't recognize at all.
"What's happening to me?" I whisper to the empty station.
As if in answer, the lights flicker, then fades. The platform is shrouded in half-darkness. And in that moment, I see her - the woman from the train, standing at the far end of the platform. Her book is closed in her hands. She looks at me with sad eyes.
"Are you real?" I call out, my voice echoing.
She doesn't answer, just turns and walks away, disappearing into the shadows.
I follow, stumbling in the dim light. "Wait! Please!"
The platform seems to stretch endlessly before me. I run, but the distance between us remains the same. She reaches a door marked "EXIT" and passes through without looking back.
I burst through the door after her and find myself not outside the station, but in a sterile, white corridor. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The air smells of antiseptic and floor polish.
This isn't Westfield station. This is...
"Alex?" A familiar voice calls from behind me.
I turn to see Dr. Morgan, but not as I remember her from our sessions. She's wearing a white coat, a clipboard in her hands. Her face shows not the measured calm of our therapy sessions, but surprise.
"You shouldn't be out of your room," she says, approaching cautiously.
"My room?" I repeat.
She gestures down the corridor, where a nurse is hurrying toward us. "Let's get you back to bed. You need your rest."
"I don't understand," I say, backing away. "Where's Lila? Where's Westfield?"
Dr. Morgan exchanges a glance with the nurse. "Alex, we've talked about this. There is no Westfield. And Lila..."
But I don't hear the rest. I'm running, pushing past them, down the corridor. Doors line both sides, each with a small window. I glance inside one as I pass - a hospital room. Another - the same. A psychiatric ward.
I keep running until I reach a larger room at the end of the hall. A common area. A few patients in robes sit watching television. Board games are scattered on tables. And there, by the window, staring out at the darkness beyond -
"Lila," I whisper.
She turns, and for a moment, I think she recognizes me. But her eyes show only the polite curiosity one might offer a stranger.
"Hello," she says. "Are you new here?"
Her hair is shorter than I remember. Her face thinner. But it's her. It's my Lila.
"It's me," I say, stepping closer. "Alex."
She tilts her head, studying me. "I'm sorry. I don't think we've met."
Dr. Morgan appears at my side, slightly out of breath. "Alex, I need you to come with me now."
"But she's right here," I insist, pointing at Lila. "Tell her, Lila. Tell her about Easton, about the dinosaur pancakes, about everything."
Lila's expression shifts from curiosity to discomfort. "I should go," she murmurs, moving toward the door.
"No, please," I beg, reaching for her. The nurse intercepts me, her grip firm on my arm.
"That's enough, Alex," Dr. Morgan says. "Lila is another patient. She has her own recovery to focus on. You know that."
"Another patient?" I echo. "No, she's... we're..."
But even as I protest, doubts creep in. The Lila I know would have recognized me. Would have fought to reach me. This woman looks at me with a stranger's eyes.
"I think it's time for your medication," Dr. Morgan says gently. "Then we can talk about what's bothering you."
I allow them to lead me back down the corridor, my mind racing. If this is real - if I'm a patient in a psychiatric hospital - then what was Easton? What were the last three months of progress, of healing, of building a life with Lila?
They bring me to a room with my name on the door. Inside is a single bed, a small desk, a window with security mesh. On the walls are pictures I don't recognize - landscapes, abstract patterns. Nothing personal. Nothing that says home.
"Try to rest," Dr. Morgan says, as the nurse administers medication through an IV I hadn't noticed in my arm. "We'll talk in the morning."
As they leave, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window glass. My hair is longer than I remember, my face gaunt. I look like someone who's been institutionalized for months, not someone who's been making pancakes in a small house in Easton.
The medication works quickly. As consciousness begins to slip away, I hold onto one thought: if this is reality, then everything else - the train, Westfield, Easton, my life with Lila - was a delusion. A complex, beautiful, painful delusion my mind created to escape something worse.
But if that's true, why does this place feel less real than the train?
I wake to sunlight streaming through the window. For a moment, I'm disoriented - this isn't our bedroom in Easton. Then yesterday's events come crashing back. The hospital. Dr. Morgan. Lila not knowing me.
I sit up, expecting to feel groggy from the medication, but my mind is surprisingly clear. The room looks different in daylight - less institutional, more like a bland hotel room. My clothes from yesterday are folded on a chair. No hospital gown. No IV stand.
I dress quickly and approach the door, half-expecting it to be locked. It opens easily. The corridor outside is quiet, but I hear voices from the direction of the common room. I follow the sound.
The room is bright with morning light. A few patients sit eating breakfast. A nurse checks something on a clipboard. And there, by the same window as yesterday, sits Lila.
I approach cautiously, not wanting to frighten her. "May I join you?"
She looks up, and again I search for recognition in her eyes. There's none, but she smiles politely. "Sure."
I sit across from her. Up close, the differences are more apparent. This Lila is thinner, with shadows under her eyes I don't remember. Her hands, folded around a coffee mug, have bitten nails - my Lila always kept hers neatly trimmed.
"I'm Alex," I say.
"I know," she replies. "Dr. Morgan told me. She says you're confused about who I am."
My heart sinks. "What did she tell you?"
Lila sips her coffee before answering. "That you've constructed an elaborate story where you and I have a shared past. A relationship." She meets my eyes directly. "She says it's not uncommon for patients to fixate on others, to weave them into their delusions."
"And you believe her."
"I have no reason not to." Her voice is kind but firm. "We've never met before yesterday, Alex."
I lean forward, desperate. "What about the accident? Your parents? Our house in Easton?"
A shadow crosses her face. "My parents did die in a car accident. Three years ago." She sets down her mug carefully. "But you weren't involved. It was a drunk driver. I was in the back seat. I survived."
Just like my memory, but with one crucial difference. "And after? Where did you live?"
"Nowhere, for a while," she says, her gaze drifting to the window. "I couldn't handle it. The guilt, the grief. I ended up here eight months ago after a... bad episode."
Survivor's guilt, I realize. In my version of events, I carried the guilt of causing the accident. In hers, she carries the guilt of surviving it.
"The train," I say suddenly. "Do you ever dream about being on a train?"
Her eyes snap back to mine, widening slightly. "How did you know that?"
Hope flares in my chest. "What happens on the train?"
She hesitates, then: "I'm sitting across from a woman reading a book in a language I don't understand. We talk about stations, about getting off at the wrong stop on purpose." Her voice drops to a whisper. "About how sometimes the train can't show you anything new."
The exact conversation I remember having. The exact words.
"Lila," I say urgently, "what if neither of us is delusional? What if we shared the same dream?"
She stares at me, confusion and something else - fear? - in her eyes. "That's not possible."
"Why not? We both experienced trauma involving the same accident, just from different perspectives. What if our minds connected somehow, created a shared narrative to process what happened?"
"That's insane," she says, but uncertainty has crept into her voice.
"Is it?" I lean closer. "You dream of a woman on a train. I dream of the same woman. You survived an accident that killed your parents. In my version, I caused it. What if there's something connecting us?"
She stands abruptly, coffee sloshing over the rim of her mug. "I need to go."
"Please, Lila - "
"Dr. Morgan warned me about this," she says, backing away. "She said not to engage with your... theories."
Before I can respond, Dr. Morgan herself appears, as if summoned by her name. "Everything all right here?" she asks, eyes moving between us.
"Fine," Lila says quickly. "I was just leaving." She hurries from the room, not looking back.
Dr. Morgan takes the seat Lila vacated. "You're up early, Alex. How are you feeling?"
"Confused," I admit. "This place doesn't feel real to me."
She nods, unsurprised. "That's not uncommon. The mind sometimes rejects what it finds too painful to accept."
"And what is it I'm not accepting?"
Dr. Morgan studies me for a long moment. "Why don't we talk in my office?"
I follow her through corridors that seem both familiar and strange, like places visited in dreams. Her office is warm, lined with books. No clipboard or white coat now - she looks more like the therapist I remember.
"Sit," she says, gesturing to an armchair. I do, watching as she settles across from me.
"You've been a patient here for fourteen months, Alex," she begins. "You were brought in after attempting suicide by jumping from a moving train."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "That's not true."
"You were consumed by guilt," she continues steadily. "After the accident that killed David and Margaret Chen, you couldn't forgive yourself. Even though you weren't driving drunk - even though all evidence showed the other driver was at fault - you believed you could have prevented it somehow. You were supposed to pick up Lila that night but were running late. She took a ride with her parents instead. In your mind, if you had been on time, they wouldn't have been on that road."
My head pounds. This doesn't align with either version of events - mine or Lila's. "Then why does she think I wasn't involved at all?"
"Because she doesn't know who you are, Alex. You and Lila have never met outside this facility. She was admitted eight months ago, long after you. Her survivor's guilt manifested differently - withdrawal, depression, self-harm. But you fixated on her immediately. Perhaps because you'd read about the accident in the papers. Perhaps because you saw in her a mirror of your own pain."
"No," I shake my head. "We share the same dream. The woman on the train - "
"The train is a therapeutic visualization technique I use with many trauma patients," she says gently. "Including both you and Lila."
I stand, pacing the small office. "You're saying I invented our relationship? Our home in Easton? The last three months of recovery?"
"Your mind created what you needed most - forgiveness from the person you believe you harmed, even though that person was a stranger to you. A home, when you had none. Progress, when you felt stuck." Her voice softens. "It's not uncommon, Alex. The mind protects itself however it can."
I stop at the window, looking out at a courtyard I don't recognize. Patients walk slowly along winding paths. Some sit on benches, faces turned to the sun. Is this my reality? Have I been here all along?
"If what you're saying is true," I say finally, "then why did it feel so real? Why does this feel like the dream?"
Dr. Morgan sighs. "Because you wanted it to be real. Because in that world, you were healing. Both of you were."
Something occurs to me. "The notebook. I wrote in a notebook about my condition, about the accident."
"Yes," she acknowledges. "Journaling is part of your therapy. Would you like to see it?"
Without waiting for an answer, she opens a drawer in her desk and withdraws a familiar leather-bound book. My notebook. She places it on the desk between us.
With trembling hands, I open it. The handwriting is mine, but the content is different. No essays about forgetting Lila, no clipping about the accident. Instead, there are daily entries documenting my time in the hospital. My medications. My therapy sessions.
And scattered throughout, drawings. Train tracks that lead nowhere. Platforms without stations. And again and again, a woman reading a book, her face never quite detailed enough to identify.
"I don't understand," I whisper.
"Your delusion has been persistent," Dr. Morgan says. "More elaborate than most. You've constructed an entire alternative life, complete with memories that never happened. The train became your escape - not just a visualization technique, but a vehicle to transport you away from reality."
"And Lila? Why did I pull her into it?"
"I believe you recognized in her a kindred spirit. Someone else haunted by the same accident, though from a different angle. Your minds connected over shared trauma, but the relationship you built existed only in your imagination."
I close the notebook, unable to look at it anymore. The evidence of my delusion, my fractured mind.
"What happens now?" I ask.
"We continue your treatment," she says simply. "We adjust your medication. We work through the trauma. Eventually, you'll be able to distinguish reality from fantasy."
"And if I don't want to?"
She looks at me sadly. "That's often the case with delusions as rich as yours. Reality seems pale by comparison. But it's the only place where true healing can occur, Alex."
I leave her office more confused than when I entered. The hospital corridors stretch before me, oppressively real. Patients shuffle past, some muttering to themselves, others silent and watchful. Is this my life now? Was it always?
I find myself back in the common room. Lila is gone. I approach a nurse.
"The patient who was sitting by the window earlier," I say. "The young woman. Where might I find her?"
The nurse gives me a strange look. "There was no one by the window this morning, Mr. Reeves."
My blood runs cold. "But I spoke with her. Her name is Lila Chen."
The nurse's expression shifts to one of concern. "There's no patient here by that name."
"But I just - " I stop myself. What's the point? Either I'm still delusional, or they're lying to me. Neither option offers comfort.
I retreat to my room, mind racing. If Dr. Morgan is right - if everything I remember about Lila and our life together is a fabrication - then what is real? Am I truly trapped in this place, or is this itself another layer of delusion?
I lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside, clouds gather, darkening the room. A storm approaches. I close my eyes, trying to think clearly.
If the train is a visualization technique, perhaps I can use it to make sense of what's happening. I picture myself boarding, finding a seat by the window. The familiar rhythm of wheels on tracks soothes me. I'm alone in the carriage - no mysterious woman, no book in an unfamiliar language.
The train passes through tunnels, emerges into light. Stations appear and vanish without the train stopping. I don't know where I'm going, but the movement itself is comforting.
Until the train begins to slow. We're approaching a station I recognize - Westfield. Halfway between the city and the coast. The train stops, doors opening.
And there she is, standing on the platform. Not Lila, but the woman from my original vision. She looks directly at me, her book closed in her hands.
"Are you getting off?" she asks.
I hesitate. "I don't know where I am."
"No one ever does," she says. "Not really."
"Is this real?" I ask. "Or am I imagining you again?"
She smiles sadly. "Does it matter?"
I consider this. "Yes. It matters to me."
"Then you already know the answer." She steps onto the train, sits across from me. "Where are you trying to go, Alex?"
"Home," I say immediately. "To Easton. To Lila."
She opens her book. The symbols on the pages shift and reform as I watch, becoming words I can understand. "There is no Easton. There is no home with Lila."
"Then what is there?"
"This," she says, gesturing around the empty carriage. "The journey. The space between stations."
"That's not enough," I protest.
"It's all anyone ever has," she replies. "Moments strung together like stations on a line. Some real, some imagined. All temporary."
The train begins to move again, gathering speed.
"Wait," I say. "I don't understand."
"You will," she promises. "When you're ready to get off."
I open my eyes, back in the hospital room. Rain patters against the window. My notebook lies on the bedside table - Dr. Morgan must have returned it to my room. I pick it up, flip through the pages again. The drawings of trains and tracks, the faceless reading woman. My scattered thoughts disguised as therapy notes.
On the last page, a single line I don't remember writing: "The only way out is through."
Through what? The delusion? The hospital? Life itself?
I sit up, suddenly restless. I need to find Lila - real or imagined. I need to know if she truly shares my dream, my vision of the train.
I slip out of my room, moving quietly down the corridor. The storm has intensified, thunder rumbling overhead. Most patients are in the common room, watching the lightning through the large windows. Staff hurry about, closing shutters, distributing evening medications.
No one pays attention as I make my way to the nurse's station. The desk is momentarily unattended, a computer screen glowing in the dimness. I slide behind it, quickly searching for patient records. Chen, Lila.
Nothing.
I try another search: accident victims, admissions in the last year.
A file appears: Chen, Lila. Last known location: Memorial Hospital. Status: Deceased.
The room tilts around me. Deceased. Lila is dead. Has been dead for months. The accident didn't just claim her parents - it took her too. Eventually. After weeks in a coma, according to the sparse notes.
I was never involved in the accident. I never knew her. But I read about it, fixated on it, blamed myself for not preventing it somehow. Classic survivor's guilt transferred to a stranger's tragedy.
And so my mind created her - alive, forgiving, loving me despite what I believed I'd done to her. Created a whole life with her, a home, a future. Because the alternative was too painful to bear.
But if she's dead, then who did I speak to this morning?
I stagger back to my room, mind reeling. The storm matches my inner turmoil, lightning flashing like synapses firing with terrible revelations.
In my room, I find Dr. Morgan waiting, her face grave.
"You accessed Lila's file," she says. It's not a question.
"She's dead," I reply flatly.
"Yes."
"Then who did I see? Who did I speak to?"
Dr. Morgan sighs heavily. "No one, Alex. You've been talking to yourself."
"That's not possible. Other patients saw her too."
"Did they?" she challenges gently. "Or did you imagine their reactions as well?"
I sink onto the bed, the weight of reality crushing me. "Why are you telling me this now? Why not let me live in the delusion if it was helping me cope?"
"Because you're getting worse, not better," she says simply. "Your episodes are more frequent. Your grip on reality more tenuous. The medications aren't working as they should." She pauses. "We're considering more invasive treatments."
"Like what?"
"ECT. Electroconvulsive therapy."
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication. Shock therapy. The last resort.
"When?" I ask, my voice barely audible over the storm.
"Tomorrow morning," she says. "I've already spoken with your sister. She's given consent as your legal guardian."
Sister? I have no sister. Or do I? Another hole in my memory, another fabrication?
"You need to rest now," Dr. Morgan says, rising. "A nurse will be in shortly with your evening medication."
She leaves me alone with the storm, with my fractured mind and its collapsing fictions. I pick up the notebook again, desperately searching its pages for some truth to cling to. But the more I read, the less certain I become of anything.
Night deepens. The storm passes, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. I don't take the medication the nurse brings - I palm it, pretend to swallow. I need clarity now, not chemical sedation.
When the ward grows quiet, I slip out again. Not to the nurses' station this time, but toward the exit. I don't have a plan, only an instinct to escape, to find something real to anchor me.
The exit door is unlocked - perhaps an oversight, perhaps evidence that this place isn't as restrictive as it appears. Beyond lies a corridor leading to a lobby, and beyond that, glass doors showing the night outside.
I make it to the lobby unchallenged. The security guard is dozing at his desk, a radio playing softly beside him. The doors ahead open automatically as I approach. And then I'm outside, the cool night air shocking against my skin.
The hospital rises behind me, a monolith of concrete and glass. Before me stretches a parking lot, then a road winding into darkness. In the distance, I can see the lights of a train station.
Without conscious decision, I begin walking toward it. My bare feet are silent on the wet pavement. The world feels strangely insubstantial, as if I could pass my hand through solid objects if I tried.
The station is deserted at this hour. A single train waits at the platform, doors open, interior lights glowing warmly. I board without hesitation, finding my way to a window seat.
There's no conductor, no other passengers. Just me and the empty carriage. After a few minutes, the doors close with a soft hiss. The train begins to move.
I watch the hospital recede into the distance, a weight lifting with every meter between us. But as relief washes over me, doubt follows close behind. Is this real? Am I truly escaping, or is this another delusion? Another train journey leading nowhere?
The carriage rocks gently, lulling me. Outside, the landscape is indistinct - not countryside, not city, just the ambient blur of places between places.
Three stops pass without the train slowing. At the fourth, I catch a glimpse of a platform sign: Westfield. My heart races, but the train doesn't stop.
The fifth stop is marked Easton. Again, the train continues without slowing.
At the sixth stop, the train finally begins to decelerate. The platform is empty, the station deserted. A sign comes into view: Terminal.
The final stop. End of the line.
The doors open into silence. I rise, moving toward them as if pulled by an invisible force. On the platform stands a solitary figure - the woman with the book.
"You found your way," she says as I step off the train.
"Where am I?" I ask.
"Where you need to be." She holds out the book to me. "It's time you read this yourself."
I take it, open to the first page. The text is clear now, no longer in an unfamiliar language. It's my story - our story - beginning with a train stopped between stations. But as I turn the pages, I find not just my perspective, but Lila's as well. Her grief, her guilt, her struggle to forgive herself for surviving when her parents didn't.
And more - Dr. Morgan's perspective, watching two broken people construct elaborate fantasies to escape their pain. The hospital staff, treating a man who speaks to empty chairs, who draws endless trains in his therapy sessions.
The final pages are blank.
"I don't understand," I say, looking up. "What is this?"
But the woman is gone. I'm alone on the platform, the book heavy in my hands.
The train doors close behind me. The train pulls away, leaving me at the Terminal. Not a station at all, I realize, but the edge of everything - a liminal space where stories end.
I sit on a bench, turning to the blank pages at the end of the book. A pen has appeared beside me, though I don't remember it being there before.
I understand now. The only way out is through. Through the story, through the pain. Through acceptance of what is real and what isn't.
I begin to write.
"I never knew Lila Chen in life. She died in the same accident that killed her parents, though her body clung to life for weeks afterward. I read about it in the papers, fixated on it, constructed an elaborate fantasy where I was responsible - where my guilt had meaning, purpose.
"In my delusion, she lived. She forgave me for something I never did. We built a life together in a town that might not exist. We healed together, two broken people finding wholeness in each other.
"But delusions can't heal real wounds. They can only cover them, hide them from the light that might actually help them mend.
"There is no train that can take me back to Lila, to Easton, to the life I imagined. There is only forward motion, toward whatever reality awaits.
"I am Alex Reeves. I have been a patient at Memorial Psychiatric Hospital for fourteen months. Tomorrow they will administer electroconvulsive therapy in an attempt to break the cycle of my delusions.
"Perhaps it will work. Perhaps I will wake with a clearer mind, ready to face the world as it is, not as I wish it to be.
"Or perhaps this - the hospital, the treatment, Dr. Morgan herself - is the delusion, and I will wake to find myself truly on a train, somewhere between stations, with all possibilities still before me.
"I don't know which I hope for anymore."
I close the book, the pen slipping from my fingers. Dawn breaks on the horizon, painting the sky in shades of possibility. I watch it, alone at the end of the line, waiting for whatever comes next.
The bench beneath me feels less substantial now. The platform itself seems to be fading, edges blurring into the growing light. I am disappearing too, becoming one with the liminal space I've occupied for so long.
In the last moment before consciousness slips away completely, I see her - Lila, walking toward me across the dissolving platform. Not the Lila of my imagination, but as she might have been had she lived. Older, scarred, beautiful.
"You're not real," I whisper.
"Neither are you," she replies. "Not here, not now."
She sits beside me, takes my hand as the world continues to fade around us.
"What happens next?" I ask.
"I don't know," she says honestly. "No one ever does."
The light grows blinding. The terminal station, the train tracks, the book - all gone now. Just Lila and me, hands clasped, as reality or delusion or something in between claims us both.
"Will I remember any of this?" My voice is barely a whisper now.
"Does it matter?" she asks, echoing the words of the woman on the train.
And as everything dissolves into white light, I realize it doesn't. Memory, delusion, reality - all are stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the journey. All that matters is that for a brief moment, in the space between stations, I wasn't alone.
The light consumes us.
And somewhere, in a hospital room, a machine beeps steadily. Electricity courses through a human brain, erasing pathways, creating new ones. A doctor watches dispassionately. A nurse records vital signs.
"Any change?" the doctor asks.
"None yet," the nurse replies. "But it's early. First treatment often shows minimal response."
On the bed, a man lies still, his eyelids flickering rapidly. Where is he now? What trains is he riding, what stations passing? What comfort does he find in the spaces between?
No one can know. No one will ever know.
The nurse makes another note on the chart: "Patient: Alexander Reeves. Diagnosis: Dissociative Amnesia with Delusional Features. Treatment: Electroconvulsive Therapy. Response: Pending."
Outside the window, a train passes in the distance, its whistle a lonely sound in the morning air. It travels along its predetermined route, stopping at stations where some passengers board and others depart. All of them on journeys of their own, all suspended temporarily in the spaces between where they've been and where they're going.
None of them aware of the man in the hospital room, traveling a different kind of route, bound for a destination even he cannot imagine.