“Yes.” Lane finally answered. “But not so much anymore.”
Mark didn’t say anything. Lane didn’t want to know if he missed her.
Countless trains had come and gone as they sat in that coffee shop. The busboy wiped down the tables and the neon ‘open’ sign switched off.
They walked out of the shop together and Mark looked down at his large wristwatch.
“I’m heading back home tomorrow morning,” he said. “Would you like to come with me? I’m sure your mom would like to see you, and maybe we could talk more, figure some stuff out.”
She could do it. She could get on that plane and go back home and talk it out. They could boil it down to teenage craziness and vote to try it again. But Lane took a deep breath. The air was smoggy and smelled of sewage and she could hear the scampering of rats in the tunnel, and she smiled.
This was home.
At one point she believed that home was wherever he was, but that wasn’t true. It was wherever she decided it would be.
“Sometimes the past is better left in the past,” she said, buttoning her coat. “We broke each other’s hearts and we’ll always see each other as the one who caused the first scar.”
“But we were just kids, we had to think about our future. Now we could really be something,” Mark said, eyes pleading slightly.
“We were something back then, but it didn’t work out,” she said. “I’ll always love you, Mark. But I can’t be in love with you again.”
Mark let out a long sigh and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Okay,” he said.
The whistle blew and the train rushed into the station.
“This is my train,” Lane said, she started walking towards the open doors, but turned back around and kissed Mark lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you later, alligator.”
Mark smiled, “In a while, crocodile.”