Emily didn’t understand why train stations pulled at her. Maybe it was because trains never lingered—they left on time, whether you were ready or not. Or maybe it was the way the platforms made breathing easier: the noise, the movement, the strangers. No one stared too long. No one asked questions. Everything was fleeting, as if life here existed only in transit. And in that transience, there was comfort. Here, no one knew who you’d been before dawn. No one questioned why your eyes were red or your hands trembled.
Three times a week, after her hospital shift, she stopped at King’s Cross. She bought tea in a paper cup, grabbed a pastry, and sat by the window in the waiting area. Sometimes, she just sat, clinging to the warmth of the cup like it was the only steady thing in her day. Sometimes, she scribbled in a notebook—not thoughts, just words, to prove she could still string them into sentences. Sometimes, she watched the departures board—not because she planned to leave, but to remind herself she *could*. She could go. She could return. She could become someone else. Or maybe just herself again, but not the version left behind in the past.
A year ago, her brother vanished. Walked out of the flat and never came back. No calls. No notes. No CCTV footage. No leads—as if he’d evaporated. The Met said, “It happens. Men walk away.” Paperwork was filed, nods exchanged, case closed. But she knew—he hadn’t left. He’d disappeared. Like a light switched off. Instant. No warning. No explanation. As if someone had torn him from her life without leaving a shadow.
Her mother collapsed after that. Almost immediately. Stared at walls, silent, refusing meals. Her father closed off, spoke through clenched teeth, as if their home had turned foreign overnight. Only Emily remained—clutching photos, his scent lingering in an old jacket, questions no one cared to answer. The house echoed now. Everything that once felt alive rang hollow.
For months, she searched: calling hospitals, morgues, volunteers. Pinning flyers to bus stops. Scanning the faces of rough sleepers, half-hoping one would turn—and it’d be him. Then she stopped. Not because she gave up. She just ran out of hope’s fuel. Even embers die if you don’t feed them. And she realized the only way forward was to keep breathing. Without direction. Without certainty. Just breathing.
At the station, she first noticed the boy—seven, maybe, drowning in a hoodie too big for him. He sat against the wall, gnawing on a sandwich, eyes fixed on the floor. His face was pale, lips thin, dark circles under wary eyes. His gaze was cautious, like a stray cat’s—alert, untrusting. The next day, he was there again. And then every time. She brought him juice, a notebook, a scarf. He never spoke. Only nodded. Sometimes, he’d stare, as if trying to decipher why she bothered. Like an alarm blared inside him: *Don’t let anyone close.*
Two weeks later, he sat beside her. Slowly. Uneasily. The way someone does when they’ve forgotten how to be near another person.
“You lost someone too?” he asked, eyes forward.
Emily startled. First at the question. Then at the weight of it. She sat beside him, silence stretching. As if speaking it aloud would make it real.
“My brother. You?”
“Mum. Three years ago. I was asleep. She left—that’s it.”
He said it flatly. Like reciting the time. No pity. No inflection. Just fact. Then he stood and walked off. No goodbye. But not pushing her away either. Just the way people do when they’re used to being forgotten.
After that, they sat together. Mostly quiet. Sometimes he sketched—pencil on the edge of a newspaper. Sometimes she read—silently, her eyes tracing lines with deliberate calm. Sometimes they just watched trains leave. One after another. Like breaths. Steady, unhurried, as if life moved to the rhythm of departures.
Now and then, he’d ask short questions: “You a doctor?” “You always alone?”—then look away the second she answered. Emily never pressed. Never invaded his silence. She recognized the fear in him—perched like a bird on a wire, ready to flee.
She never asked where he slept. Not because she didn’t care. But because she knew—if he wanted her to, he’d say. Maybe that was trust: sitting beside someone, demanding nothing but their presence.
One day, he didn’t come. Or the next. She paced the station, scanning crowds for his face—the slope of his shoulders, the way he walked. Asked security, showed his photo on her phone. They shrugged. “Lads like him come and go. All got stories.” As if he were data, not a child.
A week later, she found him. In an underpass. Curled on cardboard, wrapped in the coat she’d given him. Eyes open but glazed. Cheeks hollow, lips cracked. He was breathing. Barely. And the sound—shallow, ragged—tore through her. Because no one, no matter how strong, should breathe like that alone.
He spent four days in hospital. First unconscious, an IV in his thin arm, blankets always slipping. Nurses said his fever held, but his heart was stubborn. Emily barely left. Sat beside him, read aloud even when she knew he couldn’t hear. Or maybe he could—but couldn’t answer.
Then his eyes opened.
“Thought you wouldn’t come,” he rasped, voice scraped raw from disuse.
She gripped his hand—tight, like she was anchoring them both.
“I’ll always come,” she said. “Always. Even if you’re silent. Even if you don’t call.”
A month later, she filed for temporary guardianship. Not without doubt. She agonized, reread documents, watched him sleep on her sofa—unsure if she had the right to decide for two. Then she realized: he wasn’t just her chance to help. He was her chance to *be needed*. Not to fill the emptiness—but to give it purpose. He didn’t replace her brother. He wasn’t meant to. But he was the one who now looked at her each morning and said, “Sleep alright?” Like it mattered.
Two years passed. He went to school. Lived with her. Carried a backpack with a sandwich and spare workbook. Had a teddy-bear blanket, a chipped mug he loved, and a notebook where he sometimes sketched trains—or shaded corners when his thoughts grew heavy.
On its first page, he’d written: *”Don’t know where you sleep, Mum. But I know where I wake up.”* Emily kept that notebook like a letter. Reread it. And each time, she felt something real return—the kind that stays, even when everything else falls apart.
