AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Odd.
Unusual.
A shiver runs down my spine before I board, giving me a chance to imagine the train crashing. Like people who are scared to fly do before each flight.
I brush it off, knowing that I stand a greater chance of dying from boredom on this almost empty ghost train than in any train wreck.
It’s a train wreck that I’m trying to get away from too.
The one called my life.
“You need a break,” My doctor told me. “Go on a holiday somewhere unusual… do something that scares you,” he advised me.
“Hell. You can even use my beach house out West if you want. It’s sitting there empty ten months of the year.”
As one of my best clients, he knows me more than most.
My whole life is one big fucking vacation, that’s part of the problem.
I never meet anyone exciting or done anything interesting.
Why?
I’m supposed to be the ‘interesting and exciting’ guy doing my fair share of travel for work. But the reality is I’m bored.
I’m forty-three and have made a success of everything I touched. I have it all, with some change left over.
Some people have it all then blow it all.
Me, I just keep getting more and more whether I like it or not.
Real estate mainly, some other investments. I started in construction, sold the first house I built for myself and things just kinda grew from there.
What I don’t have is someone special to share it with.
I don’t have an equal, a partner. And I don’t mean a business partner either. Been there, done that.
What a fucking nightmare.
A king without his queen if ever there was one. That’s me.
Michael Stapleton. Most eligible bachelor of the year since nineteen ninety-eight.
The one thing I can’t even tell my doctor, let alone anyone else out loud, is that I’m not having a mid-life crisis.
I’m having a need-a-wife crisis.
My balls ache from not being drained for I forget how long, and my go-to sigh of frustration every night and morning when I feel the empty bed next to me is beyond depressing.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the train window, reflecting what others see right back at me.
Stooping a little to slot my bag into the overhead compartment, I remind myself that I’m not other people.
At over six and a half feet, built like a linebacker I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.
I watch my reflection, my winning smile grins at me like a ghost from the glass.
I even catch a sly wink from myself.
I’ve still got it.
Just don’t go letting it give you a big head.
As if I needed reminding, I clock my head on the luggage locker above me, changing my grin to a grimace as I rub my head.
But it still makes me smile.
Life’s not all bad. It’s not bad at all.
I just want… love.
I just want someone to share all this with.
Once the train pulls out and the city grime gives way to trees and wide-open spaces, I feel myself relax.
I wouldn’t get this view from an airplane, staring at a screen for three hours, or worse. The back of someone’s head if I flew coach.
I used to do that, fly coach, even catch a bus.
Trying to be different. Trying to—
This is why I took the train.
I’m looking for her. I know I am.
I just don’t know who or even where ‘she’ is.
That weird feeling I had since getting on the train has flourished, making me feel a kind of nervous excitement as the minutes turn into hours.
By lunchtime, I’m almost itchy with impatience, and as much as I enjoy the extra room for a big guy on a train, I decide to stretch my legs to dissipate some of my nervous energy.
The train’s not completely empty, but it may as well be.
The cheerful staff looks friendly when I greet them, but there’s an edge to it all.
A look.
I know the look. I’ve seen it.
I had it once.
The look of someone who doesn’t know if they’ll have a job this time next month.
Seems everything’s being cut back while some people, people like me seem to pull money from thin air from doing nothing.
But I’ve paid my dues. I did my time at a nine to five.
Coming across a fellow passenger, I say hello. Almost regretting it instantly once she shrinks away from me.
My size only seems bigger in the sometimes enclosed spaces on the train.
To make matters worse, I even ask where she’s headed.
May as well just paint ‘psycho’ on my chest in chicken blood.
She’s nice enough before she slinks away though. “Oh just on my way back home with my daughter,” she smiles nervously and I feign interest before she’s gone again.
Knowing I should wear a bell or something before creeping up on strangers.
I only spoke to the woman because I got this feeling coming off her, like it might be her.
