Victoria checked her watch. Then checked it again thirty seconds later as if the time might have miraculously changed.
Twenty minutes. She could manage twenty minutes.
She had to.
???
The station looked exactly the same, which was hardly surprising, since she’d only left it a couple of hours ago. Still, Sasha thought that the building could have had some sense of occasion to it. Particularly when she was about to do something so momentous.
But when the train arrived and she clambered onto it, there were no trumpets blaring or choirs singing, just an irritated train guard who beckoned her to get on with it.
She collapsed into her seat and had just enough to time to wonder if perhaps she should at least have picked up her things before running out of the house before the train was hissing and getting underway.
The countryside blurred past the train window, green fields giving way to small villages and then back to fields again in an endless cycle. Sasha pressed her forehead against the glass, watching Cornwall disappear behind her kilometer by kilometer.
This had to be the right thing to do.
She couldn't just let Victoria walk away without at least trying, without telling her that the past few weeks had been the best of her life. That she'd found something she actually wanted to pursue, something that made her excited to wake up in the morning. That Victoria had been part of that discovery in ways Sasha was only beginning to understand.
That she had real feelings. Terrifying, complicated, absolutely inconvenient feelings that she'd never experienced before and didn't quite know what to do with.
The train picked up speed, and Sasha's heart hammered in time with the rhythm of the tracks. What if Victoria didn't want to hear it? What if she'd already moved on, already filed Sasha away as a pleasant summer distraction, a nice interlude before returning to her real life?
What if Sasha had left it too late?
But she had to try. Had to give Victoria the choice, had to let her make her own decision with all the information. Sasha had spent too much of her life drifting, letting things happen to her rather than making them happen. Not this time.
The countryside kept speeding past, pulling her closer to London with every passing mile, and Sasha tried very hard not to think about all the ways this could go spectacularly wrong.
???
Victoria paced the platform, unable to sit still, unable to do anything but replay every conversation, every moment, every reason this was simultaneously the best and worst decision she'd made in her entire life. Other travelers had settled in with booksand coffee and the resigned patience of people accustomed to British rail, but Victoria couldn't stop moving.
What was she even going to say? "Hello, Sasha, I quit my job and came to tell you I'm completely in love with you, hope that's not too inconvenient?"
God, she was an idiot.
But she was an idiot on a mission, apparently, because when the announcement finally came that the train was arriving, Victoria was the first one at the platform edge, practically vibrating with nervous energy.
Was she really doing this? Abandoning a crucial job, one she'd worked hard for, one that she’d wanted so desperately, to chase after a woman who might not even want to be caught?
Yes. Apparently she was.
Because somewhere between the rose garden and the greenhouse, between late-night conversations and stolen kisses in the pantry, between watching Sasha discover a passion for something and seeing her face light up when she talked about it, Victoria had realized that nothing else mattered quite as much as this.
Not the job. Not her family’s disappointment. Not even her own carefully constructed plans for her life.
The train hissed up to the platform, rumbling and creaking until finally the doors opened. Sasha looked up at the open doorway and one last pang of hesitation shuddered through her. Was she really doing this?
Then she straightened up, smiled, and hauled herself up the stairs and onto the train.
???
Across the aisle, there was a young couple. Sasha couldn’t help but see them out of the corner of her eye. And she couldn’t help but watch them just a little, feeling warmth growing in her stomach. Watching them kiss and laugh and whisper to each other like they were the only two people in the world. They looked so easy together, so certain. The girl said something that made the boy laugh, and he pulled her closer, kissing her temple.
The warmth inside her grew and grew until suddenly… she couldn’t wait any longer.
Her phone was in her hand before she'd fully thought it through, her thumb finding Victoria's number in her contacts, hovering over it for just a second before pressing call.
