Emily didn’t know why she was drawn to train stations. Maybe because trains never lingered—they left on time, whether you were ready or not. Or maybe it was the way the platforms made it easier to breathe: the noise, the movement, the unfamiliar faces. No one stared too long. No one asked questions. Everything was fleeting, as if life itself here was just a layover. In that transience, there was something comforting. Here, no one knew who you’d been before dawn. No one wondered why your eyes were red or your hands trembled.
Twice a week, after her shift at the hospital, she’d stop by King’s Cross. She’d buy tea in a paper cup, grab a sausage roll, and sit by the window in the waiting area. Sometimes, she’d just sit there, feeling the warmth of the cup as the only steady thing in the day. Sometimes, she’d scribble in a notepad—not thoughts, just words, to prove she could still string them into sentences. Sometimes, she’d watch the departure board—not to leave, but to remember she could. She could go. She could come back. She could be someone else. Or, at least, herself—if not the version that lingered in the past.
A year ago, her brother had vanished. Just walked out of the flat and never returned. No calls. No notes. No CCTV. No clues—as if he’d evaporated. The Met shrugged. “It happens. Men leave.” Papers were filed, nods exchanged, case forgotten. But she knew. He hadn’t left. He’d disappeared. Like a switched-off light. Instant. No warning. No reason. As if someone had yanked him out of her life, not even leaving a shadow behind.
Her mother shut down. Almost immediately. Stared at walls, silent, barely eating. Her father retreated, spoke through gritted teeth, as if the house had turned foreign. Only Emily remained—holding photographs, inhaling the last traces of his scent on an old jacket, carrying questions no one would ever answer. The house filled with echoes. Everything that once rang alive now sounded hollow.
For months, she searched. Called hospitals, morgues, volunteers. Pinned flyers to bus stops. Studied the faces of rough sleepers, half-hoping one would turn—and it would be him. Then, she stopped. Not because she’d accepted it. She’d just run out of ways to hope. Hope was like a fire—it died, too, if you didn’t feed it. The only way to live was to keep breathing. Without direction. Without certainty. But breathing.
At the station, she first noticed the boy—maybe seven, drowning in a hoodie too big for him. He sat against a wall, gnawing on a pasty, eyes fixed on the floor. His face was pale, lips thin, dark circles under his eyes. His stare was wary, like a stray cat’s—tense, guarded. The next day, he was there again. Then every time. She brought him juice, a notebook, gloves. He never spoke. Only nodded. Sometimes, he’d study her, as if trying to decipher why she bothered. Like an alarm buzzed inside him: don’t let anyone close.
Two weeks later, he sat beside her. Slowly. Hesitantly. The way people do when they’ve forgotten how to be near others.
“Who’d you lose?” he asked, eyes forward.
Emily startled—first at the question, then at how plainly he’d struck the truth. She sat beside him, silent for a long time. Afraid, perhaps, to voice what she’d carried for a year.
“My brother,” she finally said. “You?”
“Mum. Three years ago. I was sleeping. She left—that’s it.”
He said it flatly. Like reciting a TV schedule. No sadness. No inflection. Just fact. Then he stood and walked off. No goodbye. But not pushing her away. Just the way people do when they’re used to being temporary.
After that, they sat together. Mostly quiet. Sometimes, he’d sketch—pencil on the edge of a discarded newspaper. Sometimes, she’d read—not aloud, but with a soft focus, as if the words anchored her. Sometimes, they’d watch trains pull away. 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 nurse?” “You always alone?”—then turn away the second she answered. Emily never pressed. Never invaded his silence. She recognized the fear in him—cautious as a bird on a wire.
She never asked where he slept. Not because she didn’t care. But because she sensed: if he wanted her to know, he’d say. Maybe that was trust—sitting beside someone, asking for nothing but presence.
One day, he didn’t come. Or the next. She scoured the station, searching the crowd for his silhouette, his gait, something wordlessly familiar. Asked security, showed his photo on her phone. They shrugged. “Lads like that come and go. All got their own stories.” As if lives were just statistics.
A week later, she found him. In an underpass. Curled on cardboard, wrapped in the coat she’d given him. Eyes open but hazy, lips cracked. He was breathing. Barely. And something inside her snapped. 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, the blanket 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 wouldn’t answer.
Then he opened his eyes and whispered:
“Thought you wouldn’t come.”
His voice was rough, as if dredged from somewhere unused to words. She squeezed his hand—tight, as much for herself as for him.
“I’ll always come,” she said. “Always. Even if you don’t call.”
A month later, she filed for temporary guardianship. Not without doubt. She agonized, reread forms, called friends, watched him asleep on the sofa—unsure if she had the right to decide for two. Then she realized: he was her chance. Not an accident, but something earned. A way not just to help, but to matter. Not to fill emptiness—but meaning. He didn’t replace her brother. Couldn’t. But he was the one who looked at her each morning, who asked, “You smiled today?” like it mattered.
Years passed. He went to school. Lived with her. Carried a backpack with sandwiches and spare pencils. Had a duvet covered in dinosaurs, a chipped mug he refused to replace, a sketchbook where he drew locomotives or shaded corners when lost in thought.
On its first page, he’d written: *I don’t know where you sleep, Mum. But now I know where I wake up.* Emily kept that book like a letter. Rere it. And each time, she felt something return—something real, something that stayed, even when everything else fell apart.
