•❅──✧❅✦❅✧──❅•

Lines are weird things. They keep people in something, they keep people out of things, but ultimately, lines just define. They define the shape of something, they define where you're going, they define the realms of what you're doing.

Wyatt keeps going on about what line we've wandered past, and as we sit down and drink our coffees after kissing, I realise how weird it is. I was running away from my problems, trying to escape. Wyatt was running towards his problem, and we've met in the middle. Both going to the same place, on the same line to Cardiff, yet we couldn't be more opposite.

Yet this line we've danced over feels so right. Especially after being thrown like a piece of rubbish from Bruno.

Am I just creating a distraction? I'm not even sure. Even if I am, it just feels right. Wyatt feels comfortable, empathetic, lovely. Yet, I could be just a distraction to him, keeping him from thinking about his sister, only to be dropped when he gets home, and his head is filled up with sorrow.

Understandable, though.

Yet, he doesn't strike me as that type of man.

"Non-Christmas songs now?" Wyatt asks.

I chuckle and sip my coffee. "That'd be amazing."

He taps on his phone and some music comes on. He focuses on the screen for a few minutes.

"Is everything okay?" I ask.

"Just my mum," he answers. "She's still not asleep, bless her. I'm just telling her to go to sleep and I'll be fine. You know what mothers are like though, constantly worrying—sorry, that's insensitive after what yours did to you."

I scoff. "Don't be silly. In a way, my mum had her heart in the right place. She's just... she doesn't think sometimes. Can you not video call her if she's still awake?"

He stares at me for a moment before grinning. "I like your thinking, my angel Lily."

I grin and jokingly give him a bow.

He starts dialling, and I stand up.

"Don't be silly, sit back down, she'd love to meet the girl I'm stuck in the train with," he says.

The video starts, but it's an awful reception. But I can just about make out his mother with dark hair, and a kindly yet young face.

"Wyatt? You okay, darling?"

He smiles. "Hey, Mum! How are you guys?"

"Yeah, okay, darling. I'm worried about you. What's happening?" She's raising her voice, and a man comes into view, older looking with greying hair, but a kindly grin lights his face.

"Not a lot, we haven't moved in like, three and a half hours, but they don't know anything yet either. But it's all right, I've met someone—" He stops, and I can guess it's because he partly wants to introduce me as a girlfriend or something, but it'll seem weird to anyone outside of this train.

He holds the phone out a little bit until we're both in view.

"Oh, a girl! Hi!" His mum waves at me, while his dad holds up a hand.

"Hi, I'm Lily!" I say awkwardly.

"She lives in Cardiff, too, Mum. Small world, huh?" Wyatt says.

"We'll let you two get on. Keep us informed, Wyatt. Call us when you get moving again, okay? Dad will come out and pick you both up."

I think his mum has forgotten we can see her because she nudges her husband and grins at him. I think they get the idea. The funny thing is, we've kissed but this line is sort of awkward.

They carry on saying goodbye for a few seconds while I watch Wyatt's face light up. It's fine in the confines of this carriage for God knows how long, but when we both exit this place, what will it be? He has a terminally ill sister and no job right now, so his stress levels will be high. I'm twenty with nothing going for me, spare a small part-time job and a degree. We're in different circles within the same city. Wales might be a tiny country, but it's certainly bigger than this tiny carriage where it's just us.

Though we have been getting to know each other, we can certainly bond over this weird experience. It's an intense situation, and not many other people will have that to share.

I like him, I know that much. I know I'd want to see where this goes outside of this stupid train, but outside circumstances are so much harder than they seem.

•❅──✧❅✦❅✧──❅•

"So, I guess now you've met the family, we can go to the ex-chat, huh?" he says.

I snort. "You do know we don't have to spend this time doing this random stuff? There's no quota to fill."

He cocks his head. "Sure, but my thinking is if we get the deep stuff out on this train, then when I take you out on a date outside of the train, we'll already know each other and it can be a chill experience for us both, right? I hate first dates, they feel awkward, and I always end up going into deep chats. I want to get this one right, so... yeah."

My whole face fans a flame of sort-of embarrassment. "Huh, so you want to take me out on a date?"

"I wouldn't have kissed you otherwise," he points out. "Why wouldn't I? You're beautiful, you're funny, and you deserve to be treated like the angel you are."

I giggle. "Then, I accept the request. Seeing as you're smooth and good looking. You kiss well, too."

He bows. "I aim to serve, my lady. I'm also very honoured."

I drain my coffee and put the cup in the plastic bag bin they provided us with earlier. "I mean, my experience is very limited. It's Bruno and a couple of casual relationships. That's it."

He raises his eyebrows. "So... you've never had a boyfriend?"

I laugh. "No. Well, I mean, one of my casual flings, when I was seventeen. He was... he was a good friend. We acted like boyfriend and girlfriend, he would take me out on dates, we'd kiss and have sex, but we never really put a label on it, so we were never really anything."

"I'm just surprised because any man would just whip you up—"

"Wyatt!" I exclaim. "Stop it, you're making me blush. It's bullshit, and you know it."

"I tell the truth! So, your first time was with this guy?"

I nod. "Yeah. He knew it, made it special and all. It was kinda sad because he started as a rebound because Bruno was going into the army, and I was angry he didn't see me. Me and Leo – the guy – never labelled ourselves and in the end, I think because we didn't explore that we just drifted apart. I sort of felt things for him, but I was too scared because of Bruno, you know?"

"It sounds like Bruno scarred your life in a way, until now. You were so deeply in love, and he never saw it, or did but played on it, and you felt like you couldn't put yourself out there, or if you did, you'd get rejected," he says.

I click my fingers and point at him. "Best psychoanalysis ever. That's the kind of thing I've been trying to tell myself all this time and never said it to myself until you made me see it. What about you, Mister Larsen? Ex-girlfriends or boyfriends?"

He chuckles. "Just the one. I never really explored relationships till I was seventeen. Met this girl at this summer job I had. She was... she was my first and only love. It was intense. We stayed together until she proposed to me when we were twenty-one."

"Oh, what happened?" I ask.

Part of me expects him to be sad, but there's more of a neutral tone in there.

"I didn't want to marry her. I wanted to take this job in France with my friend – Joe – and she wanted to become a vet, she was midway through her degree. Kind of just made me realise how we were good together, but life just went in a different direction. It was sad and awful, but it was the best thing. We were holding each other back, and sometimes love isn't enough to hold two people together."

I nod. "That's fair."

"Been single ever since. Casual relationships and first dates, plenty, but nothing worthwhile. Until I got on this train," he says.

I arch an eyebrow. My skin flushes warm like an antibiotic rushing through a cannula into my veins. "It's interesting, I always thought Bruno would be my one, when I walked onto this freaking train, I thought my whole world was over. Then we got stuck."

"Things happen for a reason, Lily."

"I believe that now. He was telling me how he wanted to take me on a date after Christmas, how it would be my last first date. I believed the fucker. But I think, in a way, that had to happen. I needed to have sex with him, or at least, like experience his actions to get over him. It's weird, but the more time I'm spending with you, the more I see how toxic my life with Bruno in it has been."

He threads our fingers together like shoelaces; tie them tight enough and they'll never come undone.

He nods. "Love taught me one thing: if you love someone deeply enough, they could do the worst thing to you and you'd still run back, every time because you expect them to hurt you. But if you love someone truly and unconditionally, you will never hurt them, and you'd trust them implicitly to never hurt you. Love is one of those emotions that can make you fly high up to heaven and send you crashing down into the depths of Hell. But if you're in an equal partnership, you'll both be high up in those clouds."

His words make me grow wings and send me high into his Heaven.

Bruno sent me down into Hell every single day from the moment I realised I loved him until I blocked him. I just never wanted to see it because I thought he was God in my world.

Wyatt though, he sends me into Heaven without even trying to be romantic.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason, and I needed to be dunked into the depths of Hell before I could sprout wings I never knew I had the potential of having.

I needed to be in Bruno's cult to see what being brainwashed was like before I could be saved by his own mistakes and a random freak incident on a train, so I could appreciate the real-life freedom Wyatt personifies.

I sound like a lovesick puppy.

"Maybe that's why it's easy to get on with you," I say.

"Why, because I'm the Devil?" he jokes.

"No, because you're the angel that came down and pulled me out from Hell."

"Damn, that was meant to be my line! You stole my line!" Wyatt jokes.

I giggle. "I'm not sorry."

He leans across and our lips meet in a mash of hungry and gentleness, and it erases all this ex-chat from my mind because none of it even matters.

Lines are weird things because although they define things, you can only move one way on a line, and that's forward. I came onto the train in one motion and met Wyatt at a crossroads, and together, in around four hours now, we've navigated ourselves on the same line, where we can only go one way. Forward.

•❅──✧❅✦❅✧──❅•