She’s not worried. It doesn’t exactly work like that. She doesn’t worry about him. His presence in her mind is an instinctive one. Everyone else in the world is on the outside, talking to each other in gestures and words that seem muffled and dim. Aaron is just there, in the way her hand is there.

He didn’t seem bothered when she left. But she knows him. When he stood at the door, he was crossing his feet, and he was crossing his arms behind his back. He ties himself in knots. His skin is tight on his face, and that seems to squirm in knots too. Crying, for Aaron, is a tool. It doesn’t really indicate any particular emotion. But there’s a movement in his cheek, under his eye, that looks like something is pulling on the skin of his face from the inside. When she sees that, she knows something hurts.

She should have told him, like she always did. She should have whispered, in his ear, like when they were small and frightened.

Her fingers touch the inside of her elbow. They stroke it, gently.

Back when they lived with their mum, there were no mirrors. She can see herself in the glass, faintly. She is used to not being seen, even by herself.

The evening lowers. The houses cluster. They build. Ten minutes, fifteen, there are just houses going past. They look different. There are more, more warehouses, more railway bridges, more stations, closed and blank as they fly past.

Then a tunnel. Her face appears more solidly against the darkness, hovering behind the surface of the glass. Her temple still touches it, and she sees her eyes, staring obliquely at her from inches away. She winks, one eye then the other.

An announcement. Everyone starts to shift, to stand, to gather things. The sleepy calm of the carriage is gone. Rose stays in her seat. By the time the train is slowing into the platform, most people are standing in the aisle, looming over her. She feels small. The train is cramped. She stays where she is, and her breath starts to catch and she’s tempted to stay on the train and wait until eventually it works its way back home.

She watches the platform as they stream from the doors. The stream slows, the carriage is empty, and now Rose rises to her feet. She pulls her bag down. She isn’t nervous, not really. The table is scattered with crumbs from the man’s biscuit. Absently, she licks a finger and picks them up one by one. Each is a tiny grain of sweetness on her tongue.

She walks forward, because you can always walk forward. She reaches the door, and she doesn’t stop. She steps down, and the strange noises, the air, the newness sweep over her. She steps forward.

The pace changes instantly. Another wave of people from the end carriages pours down the long platform, between the trains, under the high roof. They push past her, funnelling her, guiding her towards the barriers, and then she’s through them, and into a hall, cavernous, teeming.