Love and Other Train Wrecks

by Leah Konen

  “You know it’s not your fault, right?” I ask Ammy.

  She shrugs. She pulls the blanket up higher, so it’s just past her chin, her small mouth and wide eyes poking out. “That’s what everyone has to say. Because I’m the kid and she’s the parent, and all that. And I’m allowed to mess up and she’s not, and blah blah blah. But if I hadn’t been such a brat—if I hadn’t put so much pressure on her by asking for the Kindle—even if I’d just paid attention to the mashed potatoes like I was supposed to, it would never have happened, and my dad would still be with us.”

  “He wouldn’t, though. It would have been something else. It was the—”

  “—straw that broke the camel’s back. I know. I’m not an idiot. I can read internet advice, too. My stepsister said the same thing. But still. She might have gotten better. She was getting better, until he left. After Thanksgiving, she doubled up her therapy sessions, and she tried a new antidepressant, and meanwhile he booked the stupid trip where he met my stepmom. If it all hadn’t happened at that exact time, they would have missed each other, they would never have even met . . .”

  “But it’s not your fault,” I say again. “Really, it isn’t.”

  Her eyes catch mine, sharp for a second. Inquisitive. “Well, then why did it happen when it did?”

  I look down at my hands, rub the comforter between my fingers, pick at one of the errant threads. “Maybe it just wasn’t right. Like it was a long time coming.”

  She looks at me, her eyes cutting for the first time. “That’s easy to say, Mr. My Parents Got Back Together After All.”

  I laugh weakly, then go back to picking at the comforter. I wish I could touch her. Hold her. Make it all go away.

  I sigh. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  I finally catch her eye again. “I know everyone says they’re sorry, but I’m not just saying it. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry you’ve been living all this time thinking it was your fault when it wasn’t.”

  She stares at me a moment, then seems to believe I’m genuine. “Thanks,” she says. “It sucks. And it sucks that I left her today of all days. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Well, it’s part of why, at least. I just felt so guilty for hopping on a train and going to celebrate my dad’s new fake marriage when my mom was, like, literally falling apart.”

  “Figuratively,” I say.

  She manages a weak laugh. “Usually that bugs me, too, but I’m too upset to give a shit right now.”

  I look at Ammy. I know I can’t convince her. Not in one night. Or a few words. I know what guilt’s like, and how what-ifs feel. They’re always there, waiting for you. Not easy to fight on your own.

  Sometimes it takes meeting a stranger on a train to get the courage you need to finally stop asking yourself . . . what if.

  I cross my arms, smirk. “Well, I guess now I understand why you despise Kindles so much.”

  Ammy’s face brightens and she laughs out loud. “I guess that makes my earlier argument null, huh?” she says.

  I shrug. “I’ll give you a pass.”

  She reaches in for another Cheeto and sips on her soda. “You know, my dad ordered me another one that night, but I made him return it. I told him that I didn’t really like it anyway, that it wasn’t really for me after all. I lied so hard that I think I convinced myself.” She smiles.

  “You can always borrow mine,” I say.

  It hits me so hard, what I haven’t let myself feel until now. She doesn’t live here. Not in Hudson. Not in New York. Not even close. I’ve known that the whole time, but now it feels heartbreaking.

  Like we only have so much time together.

  We should make the most of it.

  She shakes her head. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am. “I’m pretty set in my ways now.”

  “I guess I’ll have to mail you the Hunger Games trilogy, then,” I say, trying to make it all a big funny joke, the fact that I’ve found someone who understands me who lives so far away. “Plus whatever other super-commercial book you’ll judge without reading.”

  “Hey,” she says. “Not nice.” She picks up the cards. “All right. It’s my turn. Do you have any jacks?”

  I hand her my jacks.

  “I had this crazy thought on the train,” she says. Our fingers brush against each other, and my skin comes alive where it touches hers.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, I just thought—what if I could stay longer than a week; what if I didn’t have to go back to Virginia? What if my dad’s family just became my new family?”

  I cock my head to the side, try to still the beating of my heart, try to keep it all casual. “Hey, you never know. Maybe we’ll end up being neighbors.”

  She’s smiling when she looks up. In fact, she’s almost glowing.

  “One thing at a time,” she says. “Now give me all your fours.”

  AMMY

  8:11 P.M.

  WE REACH THE END OF THE GAME, AND NOAH WINS, miraculously.

  It’s now past eight, quickly approaching full-on night. I don’t think I’ve ever even been alone in the presence of one guy this long—much less in a motel room.

  I remember suddenly what Kat said, the second weekend I was there. There was a party she wanted to go to. It required sneaking out, riding six to a five-person car, lying to Sophie and my dad. I wasn’t even planning on drinking—my dad sometimes let me have a glass of wine at dinner, and so I knew what good stuff tasted like, and I had no desire to pound cheap beer in the woods—but still, the rebellion was too much for me. I hadn’t ever done anything like that before.

  “You only get tonight once, Ammy,” she’d said. “You’ll literally never get it again. Do you really think that in fifty years you’ll regret going to some sweet party in the woods? Our parents do whatever they want, even if it breaks up a marriage—why shouldn’t we? You spend way too much time worrying about other people. Sometimes, you have to just do something.”

  The party had been fun. Kat had been right. One hundred percent right.

  You only get tonight once.

  And this tonight is in a motel room, no less.

  The thought is electrifying and scary and anxiety-inducing all at the same time. It makes my heart race and my palms sweat and my lips feel all tingly.

  I look at him. He’s packing the cards back into the box, so close that our knees are touching, two points of heat in a cold room.

  A cold world.

  The snow is still falling continuously—I can see it through the tiny space of window that the shade doesn’t quite cover up. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if we had kept driving.

  I look at his eyes, and he catches mine, too. He has to feel this excitement, this pulse in the air.

  He has to.

  “It’s cold in here, huh?” I say.

  Noah gets up, sending a wave of disappointment though my body, his knees no longer touching mine, and goes over to the heater. “It’s set to eighty-two,” he says. “I have a feeling that’s an exaggeration, though.” He kicks the heater, and it jangles like it’s a hundred years old. Then he pulls the shade up, looking out. It’s super dark, but the parking lot lights illuminate a blanket of shiny white, covering everything, every move, every step, every track. It feels like protection, like no one can see us, like it’s just us together.

  It’s beautiful.

  Noah pulls the shade down and comes back to the bed, sitting down to face me. His knees return to their original position, but now they feel somehow even closer. He looks up and catches my eye. He doesn’t look away.

  I feel like I can’t breathe. Like my heart is going to explode and the papers tomorrow will all say that an eighteen-year-old girl died of excitement at spending her first night in a motel room with a guy.

  “You want some blanket?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I have this.” He starts to lift the comforter again.

  I shr
ug an arm out of the blanket. “That isn’t a blanket. That’s a shitty-ass comforter.”

  He laughs, but he doesn’t reach for it.

  My heart goes once again into furiously beating territory, but I suddenly feel bold. I think about what I told him, the way his face betrayed not even a hint of negativity—no judgment, no embarrassment, no discomfort—only kindness.

  “Come on,” I say. “Have some.”

  I don’t wait for him to move. I do it instead. Maybe it’s the storm, or the fact that we’ve been together for almost nine hours now, or the way his eyes got all concerned when I told him everything, like all he wanted in the whole wide world was to make everything better. Or maybe it’s simpler—maybe I just like him. Who knows? Maybe he even likes me, too.

  He has to, I tell myself. I can feel it.

  Maybe he knows that his ex was all wrong for him. Maybe he feels what I feel.

  Maybe nothing even matters but this moment. Right here. Right now.

  I push the blanket over to him and wrap him up, too.

  He looks startled for a second, but then his shoulders relax as he pulls it tighter around him—the two of us, together, in our own little cocoon, protected from the weather, from families and exes, from things that don’t matter—or at least things that don’t matter right now.

  My heart pounds. My breathing gets short. But it’s not because I’m panicked or anxious this time—or at least, it’s a different kind of panic, a delicious kind of panic.

  He stops trying to put the cards together and instead flicks them off the bed, and they fall to the floor, scattering around like the snow outside.

  Then he leans closer, so close that our faces are only inches apart, so close that I can practically taste his breath, drink in the smell of him. “Did you think this morning that you’d be sharing a motel room with a stranger?” he asks, an eyebrow raised. Then he lifts his hand to my face and tucks a lock of hair behind my ears.

  “Ammy, sweet and fair,” he adds.

  My skin feels like it’s caught fire, hot and tingly all at once.

  My phone buzzes.

  We both look over in its direction.

  It buzzes again.

  “Uh, do you need to get that?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “It’s probably just Kat.”

  Immediately, he pulls back an inch or so, and his hand falls from my face. “Kat?” he asks.

  “My stepsister,” I say, reaching my hand up to his cheek, rough and stubbly and perfect. Pulling him close. “Just ignore it.”

  NOAH

  8:14 P.M.

  SHE TELLS ME TO IGNORE IT, SO I DO.

  I lean in, because I’m afraid if I don’t do something now, I’ll regret it. I’m afraid I’ll wish forever I’d done something different.

  I’ve learned to hate regrets. And I’ve had so many of them lately.

  My lips touch hers, softly at first. She doesn’t pull back. I lean in farther, pressing against her. She leans back on the bed, and our whole bodies are touching now. I can feel every kiss down to my toes.

  Her body is soft and welcoming. It fits so perfectly with mine.

  Her lips, her cheeks, her tongue are warm. Warmer than the blanket that’s wrapped around us.

  She rolls on top of me, and my hands find the back of her head, holding it. I run my fingers through her hair, finding the silkiness of the skin on the back of her neck, the heat emanating from beneath her shirt.

  Kissing her feels like coming alive. Bold and energetic. Hot and raw.

  We roll over again. Now I’m on top, and her hands reach around my neck, and it’s exciting, thrilling, familiar, but like nothing else all at the same time.

  She tugs at my hair ever so slightly, pulling me somehow closer to her.

  All I can think is that this is right.

  This is different from how it’s ever been before. More real.

  More present.

  I want to dive into each kiss and drink her up. I want this moment to last forever and ever and ever. I never want to leave this crappy motel room. I never want the storm to stop.

  I just want to stay here. Like this.

  I pull back for air. Her face is flushed. Her breathing is heavy.

  I smile. Her eyes are welcoming. Her short hair is a mess, all over the place. She looks so perfect wrapped up in her blanket.

  We are so perfect wrapped up in our blanket.

  Together.

  “Wow,” she says.

  I nod. “Wow.”

  And the truth is so clear. Clearer than it’s ever been.

  No matter what I thought before, or why I’m here in the first place, or all the things that led us to this point . . . I’m entirely, completely, absolutely crazy about this girl.

  AMMY

  8:32 P.M.

  HE STARES AT ME LIKE I’M A MOVIE STAR OR SOMETHING.

  He stares at me like I’m the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen in the whole world.

  No one has ever looked at me that way.

  I lean in, give him a light peck on the lips. “You definitely didn’t think you’d be here tonight, did you?”

  I can see tiny freckles around his eyes. Little flecks of blondish red in his otherwise dark eyebrows. I can see that his hairline is jagged like the side of a mountain and his stubble is prominent enough that he could probably grow a decent beard if he tried.

  I can see that his eyelashes are thicker than mine and his eyes look green up close.

  I can see that he cares about me.

  “Never,” he says. “But I’m glad I am.”

  He lowers his lips to mine again, and I’m back on that roller coaster again.

  He is urgent and strong and patient and soft.

  I have never—ever—been kissed like this before.

  And I never—ever—want these kisses to stop.

  But they do. Of course they do. Eventually he pulls back, and he looks at me again, and he says the most perfect thing in the world, like he studied how to talk to a girl once, like he read a manual on this sort of thing, chapter eleven of How to Win a Nerdy Girl’s Heart.

  “You are like a book I want to read forever.”

  It’s cheesy, I know. But he is cheesy.

  And it makes my heart do all the cheesy things I didn’t know my heart could do. Flutter. Race. Soar. I finally understand what Simone meant when she said all those times that her soon-to-be girlfriend gave her butterflies.

  AFTER MINUTES OR hours, it’s hard to even tell right now, Noah pulls back. “You know what? We need dessert.”

  I look at the clock and realize two hours have passed. We both laugh. He kisses me on the forehead and leaps off the bed. “I’m going to brave the cold to make a trip to the vending machine. Get my lady some dessert.”

  I roll my eyes. “You really need to stop embarrassing yourself.”

  He laughs and kisses me again.

  When he’s back, when we have two Honey Buns between us, we turn on the TV and alternate between the weather and an old eighties movie that I think I watched with my mom once, and I feel so . . .

  Safe.

  And I realize that I haven’t felt this safe, this comforted, in a really long time.

  I think about telling him that, but I’m pretty sure he already knows.

  Because I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.

  NOAH

  4:57 A.M.

  I DON’T KNOW WHEN WE DRIFTED OFF, BUT I WAKE TO the sound of an infomercial on TV.

  The first thing I see when I open my eyes is Ammy. She’s only inches away from me, with her eyes shut, a peaceful look on her face. She’s snoring, but it’s a small snore, adorable and quiet.

  We’re on top of the covers, fully clothed, empty Honey Bun wrappers between us. The nightstand light is on, but there’s no light coming in from the curtains. It has to be pretty early.

  I grab the remote and flick off the TV.

  I seriously have to pee.

  I sit up in bed, and she must be a
light sleeper, because she stirs.

  There are so many things I don’t know about her.

  So many things I want to know about her.

  Her eyes flutter open. “What time is it?” she asks.

  I glance at the clock on the nightstand. “Five. Go back to sleep.”

  She smiles groggily. “It’s weird waking up and seeing you.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  She nods.

  “Okay, I really have to pee, though.”

  I lean in and give her a peck, and then I head to the bathroom.

  Once I’m done, I make sure to put the seat down—I want to make at least a semi-good impression in this matter—and turn on the water to wash my hands.

  The lights in the bathroom are fluorescent. In the bright light, my face looks pale and my eyes look red. Probably from the dusty comforter that the motels never clean, according to the internet.

  A thought races back to me, like when you wake up and it takes you a second to remember the awful thing you’ve done, like the day after I broke up with Rina.

  What Ammy said, just moments before the kiss.

  It’s probably just Kat.

  It can’t be, I think. It would be too uncanny. Too strange.

  My grandmother is always going on about the world being a small place, but I was always way more logical about it. I always knew about confirmation bias. She would go about her day ignoring all the times that there were no coincidences. She asked the checkout girl at the supermarket if she knew me at Hunter, only to get a pert no. All the times the world proved it’s really not that small at all. But then one thing would happen, like when her neighbor in Jersey turned out to be my old kindergarten teacher, and it was proof that the world was small after all.

  But it’s not.

  Not this small.

  We are going to about the same place.

  We’re the same age, too.

  But come on. It’s a big train. I got on at Penn Station, for Chrissakes.

  It can’t be.

  I finish drying my hands, and before I open the door, I decide to let it go.

  It can’t be. It really can’t.