The reader (on the tube). 2nd part

Sooo… you can see us again, a few days later, one sit next to the other, staring at our respective books with iron discipline when -oh, surprise!- he closes his book, and takes out from his bag a brand new one.

That was cruel. I couldn’t but giving it forced sidelong glances, because staring openly would have been SO rude… At the first, I thought it was a book written in French –the letters were tiny-tiny- but later I thought it could be Italian…

I’m sure he noticed all these more or less concealed looks; he couldn’t stop playing with his hair, so at the end he was a good enough male version of Ms. Granger. But the worst part was the mine: imagine if I was upset, that I closed my book one station before our stop because I couldn’t concentrate on it! I thought I could see the cover when he closed his book, but nooo… On purpose or not, he kept the book quickly, its cover conveniently upside down…

We stood up at the same time, as a single person, and waited the train stopped. As always, he strode out the couch as soon as the doors were open, walking hurriedly towards the stairs. I followed him (not because I was stalking him, but because it was my stop and I had to leave the station too :p), thinking he soon would go out of sight, when, before running stairs up, he looked back. At me. For what seemed an eternity, he looked directly into my eyes. It was not a random look. He was looking at me, and I looked him back.

Then, he climbed the stairs almost running, as usual, and I walked up too without knowing if he had looked at me again or not, because I didn’t dare to look at him.

And when I was leaving the station I realized that, when our eyes met, none of us was smiling. We looked each other with a look of acknowledgement, a look of ‘I knew it’, frank, direct, without concealments. Without smiling.

Now, I fear my next tube ride. And I can’t imagine why :S

Yours,

~ Evil Spambot ~

TO BE CONTINUED…