Page 70 of Our Stop

How did he know they had the same stop? Is that what he meant? That they could have kept talking on the train and missed their stop?

I’m glad we didn’t miss our stop.

Was it a saying she didn’t know about? That like, when you met somebody you fancied you got off at their stop?

No. That didn’t sound right.

I’m glad we didn’t miss our stop.

Didn’t miss our stop.

Our Stop.

The Twitter hashtag.

#OurStop

Miss our stop?thought Nadia.Why would we—

‘OH MY FUCKING GOD,’ she said into her phone, holding down the record button to Emma. ‘I think I just met him. Train Guy! I think I just met him! Fucking call me!’

46

Nadia

Fifteen minutes later her phone lit up with a message, and Nadia grabbed her phone quicker than she ever had before in the hope that it was @DannyBoy101 again – though she supposed she could now think of him as Train Guy. She surprised herself by being just as excited to see Emma’s name, who’d sent a link to a tweet. God, she missed her friend. She hoped they could get back to normal soon. Nadia opened it.

I think I just stood behind the #OurStop couple at London Bridge station – they were talking to each other! I think they might be dating! I need somebody to be as invested in this as I am!it said. There was a fuzzy photograph of the back of @DannyBoy101’s head, almost totally obscuring the back of Nadia’s. But it was them. It was them not even a half-hour ago, on the escalator, when Nadia felt her tummy lurch and pupils dilate and like she should note the date, and time, and location, because she’d never want to forget when she knew she had finally met her person.

Aside from the fact that it was weird somebody had invaded their privacy that way, Nadia’s stomach did a little flip. Ifshethought he was Train Guy, it this woman on the internet thought he was Train Guy, it was all looking increasingly likely that the @DannyBoy101 was Train Guy.

Holy shit, she thought. She added it all up in her mind: Train Guy had stood her up, and she’d tried to put him to the back of her mind, and then she’d met @DannyBoy101 at Secret Cinema, deciding she fancied him even before he had turned around, and now it turned out that they were the same person.

‘Fuck me,’ she said to Emma, deciding to hide in the company bathroom and call her. ‘I met Train Guy!!!!!’

She didn’t open her conversation with a hello, or a ‘We’ve not spoken in ages’. Nadia got straight down to business.

‘I found him!’

‘This is so cool,’ Emma said, down the phone. ‘Like, I’d given up on him! But now he’s here!’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Nadia said. ‘He’s so cute. Like, you’ll die he is that cute.’

‘Amazing,’ Emma said. ‘Totally amazing. This is just perfect. So, what now?’

Nadia was thankful there were no awkward pauses or needless explanations of why they’d both been absent from each other’s lives. She was just glad they were talking.

‘Well, I put my number in his phone, and he texted straight away. That’s how I know it was him. He basically told me as much. So now I … text back? Oh god, I just can’t believe it’s him!’

‘And we’re very sure he doesn’t seem like a psychopath?’

‘Emma, he is so normal and cute and a bit geeky and quite handsome. He’s like … fuckingit. He didn’t even have coffee breath!’ As soon as she said it, she realized she probably had done. Oh well.

‘Emma,’ Nadia continued. ‘I know things have been weird between us lately, but will you meet me for lunch? I need you.’

‘Of course I will,’ Emma said. ‘Just tell me where.’

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