Our Stop - Laura Jane Williams Page 0,65

to those notes. Maybe it was like horoscopes: all the details applied, if only you searched hard enough.

Somebody else had obviously misunderstood, and he was inadvertently impressed by what somebody else had written. There must be a woman out there, somewhere, convinced Daniel was courting her and maybe that was the woman he would have met last night, because Nadia would have been none the wiser. He felt really bloody stupid. He looked up and around the carriage to see if there was a blonde woman holding a coffee in the vicinity – a woman who had convinced herself Daniel had meant her. There was a sixty-something woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a briefcase not far away, peering at her phone screen over her glasses. And a twenty-something blonde with her hair in a French braid that reached her waist, sat in jogging bottoms and trainers and with a sports bag at her feet, listening to music and seemingly checking out the woman opposite her. Was it either of them?

Daniel looked at Nadia and her boyfriend again. He briefly wondered if, and half hoped, they were polyamorous. That was increasingly common in London now, he’d heard. He’d seen it on some of the apps too. ‘Ethically non-monogamous’, some of the bios said. But from the way her boyfriend sat close to her, breathing her air, whispering in her ear – no way. Daniel couldn’t see it. He didn’t put judgement on anyone with enough love for more than one person, but no. Nadia’s boyfriend wasn’t one of those people. Daniel just didn’t get that vibe.

She didn’t look the least bit upset or put out, Nadia. There was no air to her that suggested she’d waited for a stranger last night, and been stood up. Not one bit.

Colour filled Daniel’s cheeks and the back of his neck. He suddenly felt nauseous and hot and light-headed and ridiculous. He’d spent all this time planning and imagining and it turned out he’d been having an imaginary relationship with a woman who had no idea he even existed. He seriously considered the fact that he might be going mad. This was mortifying. How would he explain it all to Romeo, or Lorenzo? Even himself? He wanted the ground to open a Daniel-shaped hole that he could step into, so that he’d never have to ride this train and be reminded of his delusions of amour ever, ever again. What a sad, pathetic fool he’d been.

Of course he hadn’t been writing to Nadia!

Of course she wasn’t interested in him!

None of this was real!

He’d been a damned fool, and played himself. As the train pulled into the station he lingered as Nadia and her boyfriend walked ahead, and he watched them go.

You need help, he told himself. You batshit crazy bastard. You’ve imagined this whole thing!

Daniel walked slowly to work, his brain doing the mental arithmetic of just how bonkers he was. He felt like he wanted to get hold of old copies of the papers, the ones where he thought he’d read her response. Was he so deluded that he’d made it up, in his head? It suddenly felt entirely possible. His shirt collar felt tighter at the thought, his neck clammy. He hated her boyfriend. Hated him. There were no specifics to this hate, but it was there. Daniel couldn’t get what he thought was a smug and self-serving demeanour out of his mind. Who did he think he was, making romantic plans and checking in to make sure it was cool with her? Who the hell was he to let her walk ahead, and kiss her cheek in affection, and generally exist as a gentleman?

Fuck you, Daniel thought.

‘My brother, my man! How did it go!’ Romeo said, watching Daniel approach through the lobby. ‘You okay?’ he said, sensing his mood immediately. ‘You don’t look great.’

Daniel felt like he was struggling to focus.

‘I’m a fucking idiot,’ he said, his voice hardly above a whisper. ‘I made it all up. All of it.’ He laughed, hysterically. ‘I don’t even know if you’re real!’ he said, reaching out to pat Romeo’s arms, his face. ‘Are you real?’

Romeo took his friend’s hands and put them at the side of his own body.

‘Last night either went super amazing, or super terrible,’ he said, wide-eyed. ‘And I’ve got my suspicions on which one.’

‘I was so stupid,’ Daniel was saying. ‘So stupid!’

‘Ah,’ said Romeo. ‘And therein lies the answer. Super terrible?’

‘You won’t believe this,’ Daniel said, his eyes unable to