​The Last Train Home

The departure board is flickering like it’s doing me a favour.

23:58 — Platform 6 — LEEDS — LAST SERVICE Except the “E” in service is out, so it says SRVICE, which, honestly, yeah.

It’s freezing. My breath keeps puffing out like I’m vaping sadness. Everyone’s just… standing there, pretending being cold and emotionally unstable at midnight is normal.

There’s this guy crunching crisps like he’s trying to be heard in the afterlife. Suitcase wheels are going clack clack clack in that suicidal way. The tannoy does its usual thing, which is: half a sentence, then static, then cheerful lies.

I’m holding my ticket between two fingers like it’s going to sting me.

In my pocket: keys. In my other pocket: a condom from the station bathroom vending machine that I bought for absolutely no good reason. Like I’m about to have sexy rebellious train sex instead of… you know… cry in a Travelodge.

My phone buzzes.

Mum: u ok? Boss: See you 9am. Ollie: where are you

Ollie never uses punctuation. He texts like he’s dropping pebbles into a well and waiting for me to climb down after them.

I’ve got a message drafted that I’ve been rewriting for an hour because apparently my brain thinks if I rearrange the words enough, it won’t count as ending my life.

I’m not coming home.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. It’s not even poetic. It’s just a door slamming.

I’m staring at it when this old man sits down at the other end of the bench. Not scary-old. Just… tired-old. The kind of face you get from living through weather and rent.

He’s holding a paperback with a spine that looks like it’s been chewed.

He catches me looking.

“It’s rubbish,” he says, nodding at the book.

I don’t know why I say it, but I go, “Sometimes rubbish is the only honest thing.”

He snorts. “That’s a very platform thing to say.”

I should laugh. I do a little. It comes out weird.

He looks at my suitcase, then back at me like he’s not trying to pry but he’s also not blind.

“Last train?” he asks.

I say, “Aren’t we all,” and immediately hate myself because I sound like a scented candle.

But he smiles anyway. “Fair.”

My phone buzzes again.

Ollie: seriously where are you

My stomach does that drop thing like my body thinks it can physically stop me leaving if it makes me nauseous enough.

The old man nods at my phone. “You don’t have to answer.”

“I know,” I say.

And then I do this stupid thing where I tell a stranger the truth because the station lights are harsh and it’s midnight and my life is hanging off a thread.

“I think I’m leaving my life,” I say.

He doesn’t react the way I expect. No big sympathetic face. No oh sweetheart. Just a small nod like I’ve said I’m changing supermarkets.

“Ah,” he says. “Platform decision.”

I swallow. “Is that… a thing?”

He shrugs. “People do it here. Something about trains makes you feel like time has a knife.”

That’s annoyingly accurate.

I show him my phone like it’s evidence.

The unsent message.

He reads it and goes, “That’s simple.”

“It feels too simple,” I say. “Like I should explain it. Like I owe bullet points.”

He looks at me over the top of his book. “What do you want it to do? Pay the rent?”

I laugh. Proper laugh. And then nearly cry, because my body can’t commit to one emotion at a time.

Down the platform someone is kissing someone else like they’re trying to win a competition. A drunk woman is arguing with the vending machine.

“COME ON BABE,” she shouts at the glass. “DON’T BE LIKE THAT.”

The old man glances over. “She’s got a point.”

I wipe my face with my sleeve like I’m thirteen.

“Why are you here?” I ask him.

He holds up the book again. “Running away.”

“Oh,” I say, because my brain wants it to be romantic. “From who?”

He sighs. “Landlord.”

I laugh again. That one’s cleaner.

The tannoy crackles, and the voice glitches mid-announcement like it’s possessed.

“The last train to—” static “—Leeds is now approaching Platform 6.”

The tracks start humming. You can feel it in your feet. The whole platform gets that tense vibe like everyone’s pretending they’re not about to have a little private life collapse.

The old man watches me for a second, then says, calm as anything:

“What happens if you go home tonight?”

I don’t even have to think. “I stay,” I say. “Again.”

“And if you get on the train?”

My throat tightens. The honest answer is stupidly simple.

“I become the kind of person who leaves.”

He nods once. “Big change.”

The train comes in loud and bright, like it’s trying to catch me doing something illegal. Doors hiss open. Warm air spills out. People step off looking blank, like they’ve been commuting out of their souls.

The doors start beeping.

That beep beep beep that makes your spine go, this is it.

My phone buzzes again.

Ollie: don’t be dramatic

Don’t be dramatic.

Like I’m putting on a show. Like I’m not literally trying to save myself from slowly disappearing in our kitchen.

I stare at the words. I think about this morning: him asking about the gas bill. Him asking me not to cry in the kitchen because it makes him feel bad. Him calling my feelings “intense” like I’m a bad smell.

I think about the job offer. Leeds. Tomorrow. New desk. New city. Me in a flat where I’m not tiptoeing around someone else’s comfort.

The old man says, very quietly, “You don’t have to make it tragic. You can just… go.”

My thumb hovers over the message.

I’m not coming home.

I don’t rewrite it again. I don’t soften it. I don’t add a smiley face like a coward.

I add one line, because I still can’t stop myself being polite even when I’m ripping my life in half:

I’ve taken the job. I’ll get my things collected tomorrow. Please don’t come to the station.

And then I hit Send.

It goes. That’s the awful part. It just… goes.

Instantly: three dots. Ollie typing like his thumbs are on fire.

Ollie: what the fuck Ollie: don’t do this Ollie: please

Please hits me harder than the swear.

The doors beep faster.

For one second I almost step back. For one second I can see the whole old pattern: me going home, him calming down, me staying, me “being good,” me shrinking into the shape of what’s easiest.

The old man doesn’t tell me what to do. He just says, like he’s handing me something plain and solid:

“One foot. Then the other.”

So I do it.

I grab my suitcase.

I step forward.

The gap between platform and carriage is tiny, but it feels like jumping across every version of myself that’s ever apologised for existing.

I step over it.

The doors close behind me with a hiss.

Through the window, the platform turns into a scene I’m no longer part of. The kissing couple. The drunk woman. The flickering SRVICE sign. The old man, still standing there, book in his hand like he came here to witness someone else’s life change.

He lifts two fingers at me. Casual little salute.

I lift my hand back, and then the train moves and he slides out of view, swallowed by the station lights.

I find a seat by the window and sit there like I’ve just committed a crime.

My phone keeps buzzing in my hand — Ollie, Ollie, Ollie — and I stare at it for a second, then do the simplest, most violent thing I’ve done all night:

I switch on airplane mode.

Silence. Immediate.

It’s horrible and it’s holy.

I look at my reflection in the dark glass and it’s still just me. Same face. Same tired eyes. No dramatic glow-up. Which is kind of rude, honestly.

Outside, the city thins into black and scattered lights.

My heart is still going like I’m being chased.

But the train is steady.

And after a while, the ticking in my head stops sounding like a countdown.

It starts sounding like… I don’t know.

Like something beginning.