From across the carriage, she caught my gaze.
Suddenly, her routine changed. She walked past her usual seat and approached me. My breathing ceased. Had I not been sitting on my hands, sweaty palms and feverish twitching would have signalled my panic. With warmth and life, she filled a seat which had been cold and empty for what seemed like an eternity, haunted by an unshakeable phantom of my past. A bump in the tracks shook me from paralysis, and in unison we braced ourselves. I caught sight of the indent that wrapped around her weathered finger—which for so long had not seen the sun—and she looked upon mine. She was smiling, and before I knew it, so was I. The band of white around my ring finger had forever been a mark of failure and shame, but with her here, with her own branding, I no longer felt the need to hide it. The ice cage in my chest began to thaw.
