**Where Do You Sleep**
Emily couldn’t quite explain why she was drawn to train stations. Maybe because trains don’t linger—they leave on time, whether you’re ready or not. Or maybe because the platforms felt easier to breathe in: the noise, the movement, strangers’ faces. No one looks too long. No one asks questions. Everything is fleeting, as if life there exists only in transit. And in that transience, there was something oddly comforting. Here, no one knew who you’d been before that morning. No one asked why your eyes were red or your hands shook.
Three times a week, after her shift at the hospital, she’d stop by King’s Cross. She’d buy tea in a paper cup, pick up a pastry, and sit by the window in the waiting area. Sometimes she just sat there, feeling the warmth of the cup as the only steady thing in her day. Sometimes she scribbled in a notebook—not thoughts, just words, to remind herself she could still string them together. Sometimes she watched the departures board—not to leave, but to remember she could. She could go. She could return. She could be someone else. Or at least 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 shrugged. “Happens all the time. Men just walk away sometimes.” Case filed, nods exchanged, forgotten. But she knew—he didn’t leave. He disappeared. Like a light switched off. Instantly. Without warning. No explanation. As if someone had yanked him out of her life, leaving not even a shadow.
Her mother took to bed shortly after. Stared at the wall, silent, barely eating. Her father withdrew, speaking through clenched teeth, as if the house itself had turned alien. Only Emily remained—photos, the lingering scent in his jacket, questions no one cared to answer. The house filled with echoes. Everything that once rang with life now just hummed with emptiness.
The first few months, she searched: called hospitals, morgues, volunteers. Taped missing posters to bus stops. Stared into 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 empty hope. Hope, like a fire, dies too when you stop feeding it. And she realised the only way forward was to keep breathing. Without direction. Without certainty. But breathing.
At the station, she first noticed the boy—maybe seven, drowning in an oversized hoodie. He sat against the wall, gnawing on a bun, staring at the floor. His face was pale, lips thin, dark circles under wary eyes. His gaze was skittish, like a stray cat’s—tense, watchful. The next day, he was there again. And then every time. She brought him juice, a notebook, a beanie. He never spoke. Just nodded. Sometimes he’d stare at her, as if trying to figure out why she bothered. Like he had an internal alarm: don’t let anyone get too close.
Two weeks later, he sat beside her. Slowly. Hesitantly. The way someone does when they’ve forgotten how to be near another person.
“Who’d you lose?” he asked, eyes fixed ahead.
Emily flinched. First at the question. Then at how easily he’d seen her. She sat silent for a long moment, as if afraid to say aloud what she’d carried inside for a year.
“My brother. You?”
“Mum. Three years ago. I was asleep when she left.”
He said it flatly. Like stating the runtime of a telly show. No bitterness. No inflection. Just fact. Then he stood and walked off. No goodbye. But not a rejection. Just the way people do when they’re used to being let go.
After that, they sat together. Mostly in silence. Sometimes he’d sketch—pencil in the margins of an old newspaper. Sometimes she’d read—not aloud, but with a quiet focus. Sometimes they just watched trains leave. One after another. Like breaths. Steady, unhurried, as if life itself moved to the rhythm of departures.
Occasionally, he’d ask short questions—“You a doctor?” “You always alone?”—then turn away the second she answered. Emily never pressed. Never invaded his silence. She recognised the fear in him—the kind that perches like a bird on a wire, ready to take flight.
She never asked where he slept. Not because she didn’t care. But because she knew: if he wanted her to know, he’d say. Maybe that was trust. Sitting beside someone, asking nothing but their presence.
One day, he didn’t show. Or the next. She paced the station, scanning faces the way you do for someone you love—by the shape of their walk, something intangible. Asked security, showed his photo on her phone. They shrugged. “Lads like him come and go. All got their own stories.” As if they were statistics, not people.
A week later, she found him. In an underpass. Curled on cardboard, wrapped in the coat she’d given him months before. Eyes open but glassy. Lips cracked, cheeks bloodless. He was breathing. Barely. And the sound—ragged, shallow—tore something inside her. Because no one, no matter how tough, should breathe like that alone.
Four days in hospital. First unconscious, an IV in his thin arm, blankets always slipping off. 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 he opened his eyes and whispered:
“Thought you wouldn’t come.”
Voice rough, as if dredged up from somewhere words hadn’t been in years. She squeezed his hand—tight, like she was anchoring them both.
“I’ll always come,” she said. “Always. Even if you don’t call.”
A month later, she filed for temporary guardianship. Not right away. She hesitated, doubted, reread the forms a dozen times. But then she knew: he was her chance. Not an accident, but something fought for. Not to fill the void, but to mean something. He didn’t replace her brother. But he was the one who now said, “Morning,” first. Who asked, “You smiled today?” like it mattered.
Two years on, he was in school. Lived with her. Carried a rucksack with a sandwich and spare notebook. Had a bear-patterned blanket, a chipped favourite mug, and a sketchpad where he drew trains—or sometimes just shaded corners when he was thinking.
On the first page, he’d written: *“Don’t know where you sleep, Mum. But I know where I wake up now.”* Emily kept that notebook like a letter. Reread it. And every time, she felt something real return—the kind that stays, even when everything else falls apart.
Sometimes, you find your way back by helping someone else find theirs.
