The C Train - A Short Story
The C Train - A Short Story
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Commuters clomped up and down the old stairwells, shaking out umbrellas and wiping the rain from their faces. The stale monotony of the subway offered a brief moment of reprieve from the sky expressing its distaste for Monday mornings.
As the C Train screeched over Brooklyn, shaking drips over hidden bodegas and cutting off conversations, a young girl sat clenching an orange bouncy ball in her fist.
Her mother nodded beside her, deep in argument on the phone. The little girl raised the ball, holding it like a prize before throwing it to the train floor. It thumped against the stained ground then easily bounced back into her hand. Her mother scowled and swatted her away as the eyes of passengers peered down at her in curiosity. The girl ignored their stares and only gripped the ball tighter before throwing it again. Then again. And again.
“Tessa, stop that,” her mother hissed.
But Tessa wasn’t one to be stopped. She hurled the ball at the ground once again only this time it bounced off her sneakers and against someone’s shin before thunking further along the train car. Tessa jumped to her feet and ventured through the forest of legs, swerving around briefcases and strollers. She didn’t care about her mother’s scowl or the annoyed groans of commuters. All that mattered was her precious ball and its fluorescent shine under the light of the morning sun.
As they pulled into Rockaway Ave Station, the train slowed to a halt. The doors slid open and the crowd began to shuffle out onto the platform, kicking the ball with them and rolling it away from Tessa. She lept after her trophy but her mother caught her firmly by her shoulder and yanked her back, holding her close until the doors clanged to a close, trapping Tessa in the train.
With screeches and clangs, the train shuttered back into motion, leaving little Tessa to peer out through the window in the door at the disappearing ball until it rolled off the edge of the elevated platform and down into the world beyond.
I met Tessa on the C Train. She was sitting there like she owned those plastic orange seats and entirely and completely belonged within the mosaic of Brooklyn with her colorful sweater and black boots perfect for stomping through the rain.
“Do you go there?” I asked finally after sitting next to her for a good twenty minutes.
“What?”
“There,” I pointed at her purple travel mug. “Tisch School of the Arts.”
She frowned down at the mug in her lap. “Uh. Yeah, I do.”
“I’m visiting,” I tried to explain. “My aunt lives here—in New York, I mean. I’m from Illinois. Chicago School of Economics.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders relaxed. “So you’re a student?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your major?”
“Economics.”
“Right.”
“You?”
“Film Studies.”
The conversation lilted into topics of school and classes and my trip to New York for Thanksgiving. I discovered that she’d been born and raised in the city. The map of the streets was seared into her mind as clearly as the cracks in the ceiling of her Brooklyn studio apartment. However, our conversation was cut short when the train crossed into Manhattan and I told her that my stop was approaching. I was expecting her to become one of the many nameless strangers I’ve crossed paths with and have never seen again. The ones that leave me with nothing more than a small stamp of joy between school and work. But instead she pulled out her phone and asked for my Instagram.
Her follow request popped up on my screen. Tessa. That was her name.
And now we sit side by side on the C Train once again, her leg bouncing against mine as the dark steel and concrete rattle in the tunnel around us.
“I’m not going to have enough time for the chicken,” she mumbles absently.
“Hm?”
“The chicken, remember? I was supposed to put it out to thaw before dinner.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“There’s literally nothing else in the fridge.”
“Tessa, it’ll be fine. We can eat peanut butter out of the jar if we have to.”
But she only swallows and stares at nothing, her unfinished words hanging in the air.
I’m not used to speaking with her in person. Most of our conversations happen over long-distance facetime calls where I can let my well-composed young woman with a promising professional future facade drop. In Chicago, I’m no different than any other economics student on campus, I relax into the comfort of fitting in with my plain, straight hair and school sweatshirts. But when I call Tessa after a long day, there’s no one watching. We can tell stupid dad jokes, confess our love in overly dramatic soliloquies, share secrets about unknowing classmates and it doesn’t matter because it’s just us and we don’t care about perfection. Our calls are often my favorite parts of the day, I smile more in those couple hours than the rest of my time combined.
That is until she goes quiet. It happens to her sometimes: her long pauses where I’m forced to watch the tilt of her head through my phone screen, the path of her eyes, and guess at the words she’s holding back. Sometimes I guess correctly. Sometimes I only make it worse.
“You aren’t in my head,” she said to me during one of those calls after I falsely made an assumption. “So stop pretending that you are.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Sure.”
“Sure what?”
“Just—” She only shook her head. “—Just stop.”
But I never know what else to do other than guess and now is no different. Is she angry with me for making us go out to a
movie today when we didn’t really have the time? Or maybe she’s just upset because her original dinner plans are getting messed with? Maybe she thinks that she’s failed me? I’m supposed to be here on vacation after all and she only agreed to go to the movie in the first place because I’m visiting.
But of course I say nothing and her head falls idly to my shoulder. It catches me off guard like a shock. There’s no barrier between us anymore. No phone or closed door. Even when I first visited her over Christmas break, I found myself pulling away from her touch.
I remember waiting at 81 St Station, packed between strangers after a walk through Central Park. It had snowed the night before and Tessa had been adamant that I’d needed to witness New York capped in snow. But as we stood in the dark underground, huddled in our winter coats, she shuffled closer to me, linking her arm through mine and leaning up to press a kiss onto my cheek with frosted lips. I stepped back instinctively, glancing around the platform for people’s stares. Had that woman been watching? I couldn’t tell--
“What? Is there something wrong with me?” Tessa demanded.
I studied her fierce gaze, her nose and cheeks still pink from the cold.
“No,” I promised. “Not at all.”
“Then what did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything,” I tried to explain. “It wasn’t you at all.”
“Sure.”
“Seriously, Tessa. It’s not about you.”
She scoffed. “Then what is it about?”
“I don’t know. It just took me off guard, that’s all.”
But she only stepped away and pulled out her phone.
We aren’t alone on the train now either. A man across from us taps his leg as he checks his watch, another passenger fiddles with their gym bag while a woman furiously jabs at her laptop keyboard.
I gently shift away from Tessa, her hair tickling my neck as I move. I don’t think anyone saw us. I hope they didn’t.
She frowns at me and I feign ignorance.
“Are you alright?” she asks carefully.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said yes.”
“Okay.” She reaches over and takes my hand like it will make me feel better. For a moment, the warmth of her palm seeps into my heart like a defender of us against the world. But all it becomes is a sticky, sweltering grasp, a rope tethering me to my fear.
I pull my hand away. “Please not right now.”
“What?” She shakes her head, her brows inching closer together.
“It’s not you, it’s just hot in here and there’s a lot of people and—”
“Sure.” Oh god, that word.
“You always say that,” I sigh. “Sure this and sure that.”
“Well whatever then.”
“Oh come on. That’s no better.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“Well, what I’m thinking is that you see me as some sort of… of embarrassment.”
I blink. “No. That’s not—”
“Sure.”
“Can we not do this here?”
“Why? Is it too embarrassing?” She crosses her arms over her chest and turns away leaving me staring at her dark curls.
Sometimes I wish I was better with words. That I could piece together my sentences without stumbling around between what I do and don’t mean. Trying to speak is like navigating the maze of the New York subway with half the letters missing from every tiled station name.
“Look,” I whisper. “The world isn’t kind to people like us.”
She rolls her eyes. “People like us.”
“No, I mean it. Two girls holding hands. People don’t like us. They’ll stare.”
“So?”
“Well, don't you worry about what they’re thinking? They might think we’re idiots or sinners or… worse.”
“So?” she shifts in her seat, motioning at the train, the city, the world. “We can’t let them be in charge. Someone has to fight.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I don't want to fight. Sometimes I just want to ride the subway.”
“That’s not how it works.”
I try to orient myself within the maze, searching for the missing letters.
“People are mean,” I finally add. “They could hurt us if they wanted to.”
“This is New York.”
“You put a lot of faith in this city.” There’s no use in explaining it to her. She’s not the type to give up and get so tired of judgment that she has to strip away her differences just to get through the day. She’s so used to being surrounded by crowds of contrast that she doesn’t even consider normal as a concept and if someone questions her existence, she fights back before moving on with life regardless of what they think. Meanwhile I notice every glance, every harsh word and every news story that adds another layer of sediment to the dread growing within my stomach.
“Just be careful when you’re out on your own,” my aunt had told me after I visited her in New York for the first time.
“I know that.”
“Oh I know you do. I’m just required to say that as your aunt and this is New York after all.”
“Is it really that dangerous?”
She smiled before shaking her head. “No, not really. It can be, but so is every city. Just be aware, that’s all.”
But how was I supposed to do that? How was I supposed to walk out into the world as myself and just be aware of anyone who wants to hurt me? Awareness can’t stop words or fists or knives.
“I’d just prefer to keep things a bit more private,” I try to explain to Tessa. “Like our phone calls.”
“We call because we live on opposite sides of the country and have no other option.”
“Yes, I know and I like our calls.”
“But you don’t like us in real life.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Sure.”
“What does sure mean?”
“It means that I don’t understand you at all. You’re always going on and on about wanting to visit each other more but then we try to do things together and you act like you don’t want me around.” Her knee bounces faster.
“I do want you around—”
“I get it. You’re afraid. But you can’t just be afraid all the time. We still have to live, you know? We still have to exist and I don’t feel like pretending that I don’t.”
“So we should just go around actively seeking out danger?”
“No,” her body stills as the train shudders and slows into Rockaway Ave Station. “You aren’t actively seeking out danger by being you. That isn’t the way the world works. Or it shouldn’t be, anyways.”
Tessa stands to leave and I follow her to the door, that anxious sediment in my stomach beginning to churn. What if? It seems to ask. What if things were different?
“I’ll see you later,” she tells me as the platform spills open before us. “I still need to get groceries, remember?”
She steps off the train and swerves between local workers and past a mother waiting for the train with her son. She’s braver than I am and lucky to be free of other people’s judgments. It’s not that they don’t judge her—they certainly do—but she doesn’t care when they are hiding behind the guise of anonymity.
And maybe I could find my freedom too.
The doors begin to close, but I shove myself between the crack and stumble onto the platform. I stagger past the workers and the mother and son, through the forest of people and all the way to Tessa and her determination.
She turns to meet me, her forehead wrinkling.
“I said I’ll see you later,” she starts. “You didn’t have to join me—”
“I know.” I swallow down the fear and reach for her hand. The warmth of our interlaced fingers seeps into me once again, only this time I don’t pull away. I let the heat flow through my arm and into my stomach, settling the roaring panic. “But I like grocery stores.”
She goes quiet, watching me carefully before letting out a long breath as the tiniest of smiles begins to bloom on her lips.
Then her grip tightens and she leads us both out of the station and into the world beyond.
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