by Tara Brown
“You just want it to be you.” She poked my side.
My eyes darted at the green-eyed boy and I felt a tremor of untruth in the statement. I didn’t want someone sweet like Lyle. I liked the danger in the eyes on the tramcar, but I didn’t want anyone to be mine. I had never wanted a pairing or a permit for children.
“We have plenty of time for boys.”
She sighed, "I’m not too worried about boys. I think I just want an easy job. That seems like what I want. Something that doesn’t have a lot of responsibility. Then I want to spend my evenings doing things I don’t have to remember the next day, with people I don’t have to know."
I frowned, “Do you think you’ve been to the club?” My cheeks blushed when I thought about the bedpost and the lines in it. I had touched it so many times that I recalled the lines, as if they’d always been there. Deep down I knew they hadn’t. They were the mark we all agreed upon as a way of knowing we had been to the club. That had been Mrs. Barker’s idea. It was a way of keeping track of the times we went so we could make the remembering easier, and maybe one day, remember going to the clubs.
“You know the Club of the Unknown is a fallacy, rumors made up by school children.” She grinned but it was pure evil coming off of her. She gave me a knowing look, “I will say, there are notches in my bedpost next to the wall. Notches I don’t recall putting there.”
I blushed and thought about my own. I was about to confess my own when we were interrupted by a voice that sounded so familiar, I almost smiled when I looked up expectantly.
"Is this seat taken?" It was the boy with the green eyes. He gave us a sly smile.
I frowned when I saw it was him and shook my head, "No."
He sat down next to me. His warmth was intense, somehow immediately taking up all of the air around me. My right side felt like it was on fire.
Amber lifted her eyebrows, wagging them. I scowled.
She nudged me, forcing me into him. I turned, fighting the blush on my cheeks and muttered, "Sorry."
He shook his dark, shaggy head, "No. It's okay." When our eyes met, I noticed he was staring at my lips.
I turned my head abruptly and looked back out the window across from me. My face was on fire, matching my arm where our skin met.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe he was speaking to me. He was a stranger, at least I imagined him to be. He didn’t ride the school tram, I knew that. Why was he on the tram? No one but students rode the tram at this hour. I remembered everyone from my tram rides. Well, the faces in my car. I supposed he could have been from another car. But it didn’t feel like that.
"You going to school or work?" he asked softly.
I nodded once, “School.”
"Fun."
I stared straight ahead. I didn’t know what to say to him. His voice was more familiar than my own. I knew that to be an impossibility, and a frightening one at that. It had to be an imagination, like hope or daydream. Things that lead to unhappiness amongst the masses. Did I want to be responsible for that catastrophe?
When the tram started to slow again for the next stop, I jumped up long before we had to be ready to get off. I needed to be away from the feeling of warmth and familiarity. Both were bad. They meant I was losing the war on my mind.
"Have fun at school," he said as I gripped the pole next to the door. I glanced back at him and ignored the way his green eyes tried to suck me in. He smiled and I wondered if that was what dreaming felt like. I knew his smile. I knew ever curve of his lips. It was impossible.
I turned away from him as the tram stopped and climbed off quickly. I shuffled in amongst the other kids, trying to blend into the platform of students leaving the other cars on the tram.
"Who was that?" Amber asked.
I looked at her and shrugged, "How should I know?"
“You jumped up like he bit you. Then you stared at him. It was weird.”
I glanced back, allowing myself one last look at him, but he wasn’t there. I couldn’t see where he'd gone. “I don’t know. He was weird.”
I wished I had just one more moment, just to stare and attempt to force my brain to remember him. I was convinced I’d met him at the club, and inside of me somewhere, there was a night with his face filling the memory I couldn’t see. I wished I could though. It would be like looking through a glass brick; indistinguishable features, but I would be able to see his face pressed against mine. I might maybe remember how it felt to be in his arms. I blushed, knowing I would have never let it go that far.
Amber nudged me back to reality with a nearly-silent whisper, "Pity we won't remember him tomorrow."
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