“Roy Clark says I’m cute”

She led him down abandoned train tracks barefoot, wearing a white dress. He, small khakis and a light-blue button-down. The time was approaching dawn, they were walking in the same direction as the spot where the end of the train tracks met exactly where the sun would set on the horizon.

“I don’t wanna know that” he said, following reluctantly behind her.
“Why? Are you jealous?”
“No! I just don’t care, and why do you have no shoes on?”
“I lost them”
“How did you lose them?”
“I don’t know”
“Girls are so stupid…”

She picked up a stone from the side of the tracks and threw it back at him, hitting him square in the chin. She ran off as he ran after her, steadily grunting, with a tear of pain running down his face. She was smiling widely, breathing heavily, occasionally looking back. She came across a boulder which she tripped over and tumbled across asphalt for a good six feet. She laid there grunting in a bed of stones. He stumbled behind her. About three buttons had become undone and one popped off completely, there was a small scar on his chin where she had hit him. He stood over her, exhausted.

“Are you okay?”

She responded with a painful grunt. She was in the fetal position with her arms covering her face. Her white dress had been torn and dirtied. He cautiously reached down and grabbed her arm which she snatched away. She stumbled to her feet and slowly removed her hand from her face revealing a gash in the right side of her chin and her hand stained with blood. She wiped away her few tears with her bloody hand and looked at him.

“You know, Roy Clark bought be the shoes”
“The ones you lost?”
“Yea…I don’t really like Roy Clark”
“Yes you do, you just said he was cute”
“He said I was cute”
“Why did you have the shoes?”
“They were pretty”
He looked down at her bare, dirtied feet cut along the outside of the big toe.
“What did they look like?”
“I don’t remember”

Dawn was approaching at this time now. From his perspective her face was in the sunlight; to her, his was in the shadows. Slowly she moved toward forward and kissed the scare she left on his chin.

“Sorry”

With that, she crossed the train tracks. She stopped and looked back at him to see that he was also still looking at her. A train whistle sounded from the horizon. After a while their mutual gaze was broken by the train that wasn’t supposed to come. The wind from the train passed both of their faces. Both wondered if the other would still be waiting on the other side when it ended.