All the Lonely People

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  When he meets my gaze, he hands it back to me. “Wow.”

  “That arrived a few days before his ashes did,” I tell him as I put the letter away. “I never told anyone about it. Not even Mama.”

  Henry picks up his long arm from where it’s propped, holding him upright, and he wraps it around my back.

  “It sucks so much, Jo. I know it sucks so much.” He squeezes my arm and pulls me closer to him. I drop my head onto his shoulder and forget all the uncertainty and awkwardness between us. I forget that we almost kissed earlier. I forget that our friendship—if that’s what we’ll still call it when we’re back in London—has been a little unconventional. Instead, I focus on his warmth. The current of sadness that connects us.

  After a few minutes, he whispers, “We should go soon.”

  He’s right, but leaving feels like giving up. Accepting Pop is gone means I’ll never get any real closure. But sleeping in a graveyard on the cold, damp ground won’t exactly solve anything, either.

  I nod and grudgingly pull away. He stands and reaches for my hand. My stiff legs shake as he pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go, even as we walk out. Our fingers lace together, steady and solid. It feels like I could dangle from the end of his arm and never touch the ground. It’s the first time I’ve felt like somebody’s got me in a very long time.

  If my heart didn’t hurt so much, the feeling would probably make me swoon.

  “Do you want to tell me about the Eleanor dream?” he asks, as we turn onto the halogen-lit sidewalk, toward the bus stop.

  I hesitate. Maybe it’s time. It didn’t come true. Keeping it to myself wasn’t some magic trick to making sure it happened. I don’t even know where I came up with such silly superstitious nonsense, now that I think of it. So as we walk, I tell him. All of it.

  The whole thing.

  Chapter 32

  : Ticket to Ride :

  “SORRY LOVEY,” THE rosy-cheeked ticket lady says to Henry. “The last train to London left over an hour ago. Next one is bright and early at 7:05.”

  Guilt ripples through me. If not for all my graveyard sobbing, we would’ve made it back to Lime Street in time. Now we’re stranded. Henry glances over at me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. We’ll make another plan.” If he’s irritated, it doesn’t show.

  “There’s a bed-and-breakfast at the north exit,” Rosy Cheeks says. “And if you can’t wait till morning, there’s a bus station two blocks north. A few night bus routes could have you back in London before you’d board the train here.”

  We both thank her and step aside. Henry looks down at me.

  “I don’t know about you,” he says, twisting his hands together, “but I’m pretty knackered. We could get a room for the night.” His eyes widen and he quickly adds, “Surely the B and B has one with two beds.”

  My ears go hot. The thought of spending the night in a hotel room with Henry, even one with two beds, sets off alarm bells. It’s one thing to sleep in a room down the hall from him. It’s quite another to sleep in the same room.

  “Couldn’t we stay here until morning?” My voice gives me away too much.

  Henry bites the inside of his cheek and points to the hours printed on the doors. “They close up at midnight.”

  My palms start to sweat. “Oh.”

  “Let’s go check out the bus schedule,” he says.

  * * *

  : : : : :

  * * *

  At the bus station, we purchase tickets to Birmingham, which is a three-hour ride. The ticket attendant informs us that once there, we’ll change buses and ride another three to London. We missed the last non-stop, doubling our trip time back. Figures.

  Only a dozen or so stray travelers sit on the benches near the doors. Closer to the back of the room, a homeless man slumps down in a chair, half asleep with a newspaper open on his lap. The edge of his brown coat is tattered and…

  It hits me when I see the black case at his feet.

  It’s the man from Pier Head—the one who was playing Here Comes the Sun this morning. My heart leaps. I don’t know why he’s here or what it means, but my emotions are all over the place. I want to laugh and cry. Irrationally, I want to hug the man and thank him for being real.

  “Check it out,” Henry says, stirring me from my reverie. He points to the right side of the sterile white station, where a larger-than-life painting of Paul McCartney in thermodynamic colors hangs. It warms the entire wall.

  “He’s my favorite, if I had to pick.” I wipe my eyes. “I’ve always felt connected to him.”

  “Why’s that?” Henry asks as I tilt my phone up and snap a picture of the painting. “Send that to me,” he adds, pointing at the picture I took.

  “His mother died when he was fourteen, same age as when I lost Pop. And she communicated with him through dreams.”

  Henry’s jaw drops. “No way.”

  “Way. That’s where Let It Be came from. She whispered it to him in a dream. When he woke up, he wrote the song in one sitting. People always think that song is some religious ode to the Virgin Mary, but it’s not. His mother’s name was Mary. Mother Mary was his mom.”

  “I never knew that,” Henry says, pulling up the photo I texted him.

  “Well, you’re not a fan. So.” I sniffle, teasing.

  He flashes me a weary grin and then studies the picture I sent him. “You have an eye for capturing light,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I mumble.

  I’m still processing the compliment when a commotion on the other side of the station distracts us. A hefty bus station employee nudges Here Come the Sun man with a broom, so hard that it knocks the newspaper off his lap. “If you’re not buying a ticket, you’ve got to move on.”

  The man jumps to his feet, suddenly awake. “Don’t touch me!” His voice echoes through the station. A hush falls over the waiting passengers.

  “Bloody hell,” Henry mumbles under his breath and stands.

  I want to jump up and defend the man, to tell Henry about the dream, but there’s no time and I can’t find my voice.

  “I said,” the station employee reiterates, wielding the broomstick like a weapon, “If you don’t have a ticket, You. Must. Leave.”

  “He’s got a ticket,” Henry says, stepping between them. “I’m getting it for him now.” He motions for the man to follow. After a moment of laser-staring at the employee with the broom, the homeless man grabs his violin case and limps behind Henry, mumbling obscenities under his breath. Everyone in the station watches in silence.

  “What’s your name?” Henry asks him as they approach the ticket counter. Their voices carry through the quiet.

  “Duncan.”

  “And where are you headed, Mister Duncan?” He points to the music case. “Someplace that appreciates good music, perhaps?” Henry’s smile betrays none of the heaviness of our evening. He’s lively. Charming. Kind.

  “I’ve not been headed anywhere in years.”

  “Well, it’s your lucky night, because you can go to Leeds, Sheffield, or Birmingham.”

  The man thinks about it for a moment. “Leeds.”

  Henry nods and buys the ticket, pats the man on the back, and sends him back to his spot.

  My heart is a puddle of goo by the time Henry resumes his spot beside me.

  Pop used to say that you can tell a lot about a person’s character by the way they treat people with nothing to offer them. I can’t help it; I give him heart eyes.

  “What?” He says this like he hasn’t done something extraordinary. Something most people wouldn’t.

  “You’re very kind.”

  He shakes his head, mouth quirking up on one side. “No. Just altering the trajectory of a gravitational wave.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I say. He glances down at my lips, then back up to my eyes.

  “Me either, really.”

  I’m mentally cataloging all the shades of green s
tar-bursting from his pupils when the loudspeaker crackles to life.

  “421 line to Birmingham now boarding.”

  “That’s us.” Henry stands. I follow behind him, a little diz-

  zy from the staring contest.

  Chapter 33

  : Hard Day’s Night :

  WE SIT NEAR the back, away from the other passengers.

  Henry offers me the window seat. I drop my bag and watch out the window as I listen to the announcements and safety warnings. The Here Comes the Sun man steps outside the bus station and lights a cigarette. It hits me then. I turn to Henry.

  “I haven’t seen you smoke today.”

  He squirms around in his seat, getting comfortable, but doesn’t look at me. “I’m trying to quit. Bad for your health, you know.”

  I smile.

  As the bus moves out onto the highway, the lighting dims. Beams from the streetlamps and moonlight pour in. Some passengers reach up and click the dome lights above their heads. I leave mine off, pressing my face against the cool window. Trees and road signs zoom past as I settle into the melancholy of leaving.

  “I’m pretty sure that was a sign.” Henry says.

  “What was?”

  “The man at the station.” He searches through the contacts in his phone. “He chose Leeds. My mother is buried there. She was from there.”

  I stare at him, not quite knowing what to say.

  “I haven’t visited her grave since her funeral.”

  “Why not?”

  He looks out the window for a minute, takes a deep breath.

  “I haven’t been able to forgive her.”

  I swallow, hard. “For dying?”

  “For a lot of things.” He looks over at me. “But yeah, mostly for dying.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  He nods. “I know you do.”

  “What about your dad? Is he still having a pretty hard time with it?”

  “Dad and I aren’t on the best terms either.” He shrugs, and for the tiniest irritating moment, I think maybe he’s going to blow me off and not tell me, even after everything I’ve told him today. “When Mum died, I was angry at him. For being so harsh to her while she was sick.”

  I struggle to picture George doing such a thing.

  “He was harsh to her?”

  Henry looks up at me. I see the pain there, the reluctance to say whatever is bothering him.

  “She stepped out on him. Patrick and I have different fathers, but she never told any of us that. She kept it buttoned up until my dad confronted her with some of Patrick’s medical paperwork. A sports physical for football, of all things. B negative blood type. Both dad and mum are O positive. Two Os can’t make a B.”

  I’m so stunned I don’t know what to say.

  “Then my father remembered John was B negative.”

  “Wait,” I say, “the friend of your family’s who died?”

  Henry nods. “There was a huge blow up. Patrick and I heard him accuse her. And as preposterous as it sounded, a few things made instant sense to both of us. First being that Patrick looked nothing like Mum or Dad, but exactly like John.”

  Henry’s tall, Patrick’s not. Henry’s got brown hair and green eyes, Patrick’s got red hair and blue eyes. The difference hadn’t really made me think anything of it, because Lexie and Maddie are twins and they look nothing alike.

  “I was so angry at all of them. At her for doing it. At my father for always being away teaching classes, for making her feel so lonely she turned to someone else. At John for doing such a despicable thing to my family. And at Patrick, for being the reason I knew I had to accept it.”

  His fist clenches on the armrest. Thinking back to what George said about Henry’s perpetual anger, it makes sense now. I reach over and loosen his fingers. Something washes over his face. Surprise, maybe, at the gesture. He relaxes his hand but pulls it away.

  I clear my throat. “Did your dad confront John?”

  Henry stares down at his lap. “John was already dead. That’s how my father knew the blood type. He’d been the one to identify his body after the accident. He’d seen all his medical files.”

  “God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So they were close?”

  Henry nods. “John was Mum’s friend originally, but she introduced him to my father early on in their relationship. John was in a bind with his living situation and my father helped him. Anyway, she couldn’t pull herself together to go see him. You know, after. He was like family. Like an uncle to Patrick and me.”

  Uncle, not father. Patrick must’ve been so hurt and confused. I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like to find out someone you’d known and cared about wasn’t who you thought they were. Especially after it was too late.

  “How did Patrick take it?”

  “Like Patrick takes everything. Badly.” There’s a sharpness to his words, and it makes me feel even worse for Patrick.

  “Really? He always seems so positive about everything.”

  Henry cuts his eyes sideways at me. “That’s because he overcompensates.”

  “He really doesn’t seem to me like—”

  Henry reclines his seat backwards and gets comfortable. He turns his attention away from me and to his phone. The conversation seems over without my permission. Why am I defending Patrick?

  “I don’t know him like you do,” I concede, and press my own recline button. But nothing happens. The button sticks, and I press again. This time, I really dig my shoulder in. Still nothing. Won’t budge. Doors, seats, empty graveyards: nothing ever works for me. Everything is such a struggle, all the time.

  Henry looks up from his phone as I angrily dig my shoulder in. “Won’t go?”

  He sits up and presses the button on my armrest until it gives. “Lean back now.” I try, but it may as well be a concrete wall. He places his hand on the back of my seat and presses the button again.

  I fly backwards at Mach 3 and my head bounces off the seat when I meet resistance.

  “Bloody hell!” His eyes bug out. His curse echoes through the bus. There’s a commotion among the other passengers, some rustling and talking. He leans down and whispers. “Was that loud?” It’s his sheepish tone that does me in. Laughter crashes over me and I can’t stop.

  “Bloody hell,” he says again, quieter this time. “You must have a head injury. How many fingers am I holding up?” He holds up two, then four, then five, then one. Never for more than a second or two. This only makes me laugh harder. He chuckles along and leans back in his seat. Once I finally settle down, he says, “Seriously, are you all right?”

  I look over at him and nod. Reclining side by side in our seats like this, face-to-face, feels intimate. Not bed-and-breakfast-room intimate, but enough that my nerves fray. I look away and watch out the window as we move away from the lights of town.

  Keystrokes click quietly next to me as he types something into his phone. I wait as long as I can stand it before I sneak a peek. You’d be furious if you knew what I almost did today. I try not to make it obvious that I’m reading, but he glances over at just the right moment and catches me.

  “I hear Bristol has an excellent espionage program,” he says.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. Busted.

  He tucks his phone away. It’s dark in the bus, I feel his smile on my skin.

  “I still text my mother,” he says, and my heart breaks a little more for him. “Sometimes it helps.”

  I wonder what he almost did today that would upset her. Sleep in a bed and breakfast with a girl? I don’t know anything about his mother or what would have upset her, and I wish I did.

  “What was she like?”

  He shrugs. “Fucked up. Selfish. But she was ours.”

  I relate to that a little too well. I shiver inside my shirt.

  “Are you cold?” He sits up and flips on his dome light overhead before rummaging in his bag. Then he pulls out a blanket—no, the blanket. “Here.”

&nbs
p; I shove frantic arms back in my shirtsleeves and push the blanket away before he can spread it over us. “No, I’m okay. I’m not cold. Really.”

  He gives me the same exasperated look he gave me that first day in the tube. “Really? Are we still doing this?”

  It doesn’t have to be a thing if I don’t make it a thing.

  “Fine. Okay. I’m cold.” I pull the blanket up.

  “I promise not to get handsy.” He flips the dome light off and his joke hangs there in the dark. I force a laugh, but inside I’m not laughing at all. I’m wondering what it’d be like if he did. I close my eyes and let the forbidden dream replay like a movie reel in my brain. I promise myself when we get back to London, I’ll never think of this again.

  Henry’s breaths rise and fall next to me. I risk a peek at him. A patch of moonlight rests on his face, and he stares back at me, green eyes piercing the dark. He looks like a still frame from a comic book: the whole world is black and white, except for his eyes. He looks at me like he knows me. Really knows me. Like we’ve shared something nobody knows about but us.

  “Can I ask you something?” I breathe it more than say it.

  He gives me a drowsy nod.

  “That night. After the Crow and the tea in the darkroom. You said you dreamed something intense. What was it?”

  He looks down, hiding under the shadow of his lashes. Opens his mouth and closes it. Opens and closes it again. His eyes search my face, resting finally on my lips. It isn’t a quick glance this time.

  “I probably shouldn’t say.”

  My voice comes out raspy. “Probably shouldn’t?”

  He grins and squeezes his eyes shut, as if debating. When he opens them again, he says, “I definitely shouldn’t.”

  It could’ve been about anything. But my pulse is making some pretty grand assumptions. We lie just like that, facing each other in the dark. Streetlights illuminate our faces every few seconds. He bites his bottom lip and traces the stitched edge of the blanket with his index finger. My eyes follow it.