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Description
The first thing I noticed was the fez on her lap. I saw it as I scanned the tube for empty seats; a flash of red in the corner of my eye. It perched delicately on her thighs like a small, unassuming puppy that stared at passerby with large eyes, silently daring them to challenge its right to be there. I gaped at it; the train started forward with a jerk and I had to grab onto the metal pole in front of me to keep my balance. The ungainly motion of my body lurching forward caught the eye of the fez's owner; I saw her look up at me quickly, then duck her eyes down to her hands, which were diminutive and pale and folded neatly in her lap, just behind the fez. I sneezed loudly into the sleeve of my trench coat and she smiled. It was for barely an instant—and, it was probably an attack on my limbs and their length and the strangeness with which they moved—but it was enough to cause an unfamiliar tug inside me, not unlike the movement of the train.

She was definitely fetching, above average as far as good-looking females went. Her hair was soft and a rich, milk chocolate-brown, streaked with salmon pink highlights. It fell to her shoulders in loose curls with a light fringe that parted to the left and barely brushed her eyebrows. She was petite and pale, but rather curvy, and blessed with legs that were positively stunning. However, her most striking features were her eyes. They were russet-coloured, and they possessed a power and a glint that could've stopped people, stopped wars, stopped time. As they pulled me in, I inexplicably found myself doing something that I never did: I attempted to make conversation with a stranger on the train.

"Fezzes are cool," I said, inwardly wincing at the way my voice broke on "fezzes." She looked at me for a moment, and I was suddenly terrified that she wouldn't get the joke. Though it was commonly thought that everyone in England was raised on Doctor Who, in fact, I had yet to meet a girl who had seen more than a few episodes.

"Nice trench coat," she deadpanned back, "but you forgot the 3D glasses."

I let out the breath I had been subconsciously holding and proceeded to grin stupidly. The corners of her mouth twitched into something that was less than half a smile. It wasn't enough; I wanted to see her smile fully, teeth and all. There would have to be more jokes, I decided, and they would have contain Doctor Who references, as that was the only subject on which we seemed equally familiar.

"I'm actually Tom Baker," I said, touching one of the brown curls that sprung from my skull in homage to the wild-haired fourth Doctor, "but I left my scarf at home."

"You mean this one?" She reached into the bag next to her and pulled out the end of a multicolored scarf.

"Oh my god," I said. "The embarrassing thing is that I actually have the same one, and it actually is at my house." Even more embarrassing was the fact that the scarf—famed for its length—hung just above my ankles after being wrapped only twice around my neck.

"I'm sitting on the underground with a fez on my lap," she said. "It doesn't get much worse than that. Although," she added, "I am getting off in two stops."

"Yes, er, is there a particular reason for that?" I inquired nervously. Here was a girl who liked the only television show I cared about unashamedly, and, of all the miracles, didn't seem to be put off by my height. And I was actually talking with her. Nothing short of her mother going into labour or her grandmother's final words would make me let her leave.
"Which one?" She was smiling with her eyes but not her mouth. Of all the mysterious abilities girls possessed, I found this to be by far the most fascinating.

"Erm, either." I was five sentences into conversation with a stunningly pretty girl, and, if my track record was any indication, I would strike out by the tenth sentence. It was very likely that the end was approaching.

"There was a convention, in London," she said. "A Doctor Who one, obviously. And I'm getting off in two stops because that's closest to where I live."

Seven sentences.

"A convention. I tend to avoid those as a rule on account of, erm, people." This was it; I was faltering, and three sentences early at that—or so I thought. She glossed over my awkward admission as though I hadn't spoken.

"I met David Tennant," she said softly. "He's much shorter in person."

At that moment, the train halted. All around us, people stood up and began to inch their way towards the doors. I remained where I was, my gaze still fixed on her. She seemed to have shrunk in the space between her last words and now. Her hands were clenched in her lap. As the last overweight man squeezed past me, I darted from my pole and into the now-unoccupied spot next to her. She didn't even flinch as I folded, paperclip-like, into the place a bearded, leering man had just vacated.

"Tired of standing," I offered unnecessarily. As true as it was, it was also a shallow excuse to be closer to her, and she most likely knew it. "Why was Tennant there, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," she said in the same quiet voice. "I didn't ask."

Silence elapsed. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants. WE had passed the 10-sentence mark and into uncharted waters. I was nervous—not just jittery, but full-on, stomach-turning nerves, with all the clammy hands and awkward gestures besides. Our shoulders touched—or rather her shoulder touched my upper arm—and it was enough for me to feel her slump as she sighed. "Maybe he missed it. Being the Doctor, I mean."

"That's plausible," I said, jumping to attention. "Being the Doctor is pretty much the best job an actor can hope to have."

"Mmh." Then, "It was kind of anticlimactic."

"Meeting David Tennant?"

"Yeah. It's like…you know when you're a kid and you idolize, I dunno, a superhero? And you think he's the greatest, strongest, kindest person in existence and you're sure that nothing will ever make you think differently?"

"Yes?"

"But you get older," she continued, "And you discover other things, like music and sex and better television. Then, you find yourself looking back on that superhero and you realize that he wasn't that great. Meeting David Tennant was like that; it was that feeling of disappointment." She smiled ruefully. "I guess I built him up so much in my head that he couldn't live up to my expectations."

I fidgeted. I understood what she was saying, but I hadn't experienced it. I'd discovered neither music, nor sex, nor better television. This only increased my feeling that she was on a higher plane than I, standing on a lofty cloud to which I had not yet ascended. I estimated we were about the same age—perhaps she was younger, perhaps she was older; age always seems harder to guess in women—and yet she seemed to have wandered further down the path of life than I had. It was one of the many curious things about her. It was curious that we seemed so similar and yet so far apart. It was curious that this beautiful stranger had uttered such an all-encompassing truth in a manner so simple that someone much less intelligent than myself could have understood it. The most curious thing of all, however, was the fact that she said it to me, when I had introduced myself by way of a Doctor Who reference, and only because I found her rather fit. It seemed I was in the middle of one of those moments that only happen in novels, where something extraordinary disguised as something ordinary occurs.

"Why am I telling you this?" she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. "I don't even know your name." We glanced at each other at exactly the same time. She was the first to look away. The air between our gazes felt like it was ripping as she turned her head; her eyes were like a vise, holding mine in place until she decided to sever the connection. At that moment, I didn't have an answer for her question. The impact of having her eyes on mine was so visceral that their sudden absence left me feeling winded. I wasn't used to this. I never talked to strangers, and they rarely talked to me, yet somehow I was sitting on the underground with a gorgeous girl who also happened to be offering bits of her soul as if they were jellybeans. Not only that, but the way she was affecting me was so physical that it frightened me a little, if only because I'd never encountered anything like it before.

"You realize this is ridiculous, right?" I said. Outside, the walls of the tunnel blurred into an unidentifiable shape and colour. I pulled myself farther into my coat and bit my tongue as I waited for her to say something. It was impossible for me to make myself smaller, but I wished I could. I wished I could fold my shoulders in on themselves and vanish. When she continued to be silent, I swallowed and spoke again. "Last time I was here, the most interesting thing I saw was a guy with salmon-coloured hair and big glasses holding hands with a guy with dark hair and bigger glasses."

"I don't know." I peeked at her just in time to see the tiny smile that ghosted her pale lips. "That sounds pretty interesting." I shrugged. It felt like the movement of the continents.

"They were pretty, I guess."

Her smile widened. "Where are you coming from, anyway?"

"London, like you."

"I know that. But where in London?"

"Foyles," I said sheepishly. "Sometimes I'll hide on the fifth floor and pretend that someone's coming to find me." I realized it was pathetic as soon as I said it, so I hunched my shoulders and stared stoically at my hands. They were so large, but not in the rugged, powerful way that one associates with things like fathers and lumberjacks. The palms were wide, the fingers, long and slim. They looked like they should be able to either crush walnuts, or do something delicate and precise, like sewing. In truth, they could barely hold on to anything at all.

"Sometimes I open Waterstone's Piccadilly and stay till they throw me out," she said. "The sad part is that I pretend it's my shop and I'm closing up at night when I leave."

I laughed, and she mistook my delight for mockery.

"Yours was a lot worse, you know."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just…it's brilliant." Not for the first time, I wished that someone would equip me with a brain that understood how words fit in sentences.

"I'm taking a shot in the dark and assuming you won't think it's ridiculous that I've been trying to read 365 books every year for about five years now."

"Have you succeeded?"

"The closest I got was 183. No one has the time to read 365 books a year, anyway."

"I do..."

This was true. Ever since school had dropped me, reading was the only productive thing I did. My parents had all but given up on me. They disliked the fact that I spent so much time and money at bookshops, but at least it got me out of the house.

"Oh—erm—oh." She sounded like a girl in a period drama who has entered her front parlour only to find her husband ravishing another woman. Perhaps she thought she had offended me. Either way, I didn't say anything. The silence that elapsed was the kind that feels like a slap in the face and sounds blatant and ugly, like words such as "slam" or "holocaust." It was how I felt when I knew that someone was craning their neck back, trying to see my head through the clouds. I knew that the train ride would end soon, but there was a block inside me that took anything I had to say and throttled it in meaty fists. Somehow, we had stalled; somehow, our seemingly stable foundation of Doctor Who references and great truths and bookshops was crumbling beneath my feet.

Even as I thought it, the train began to slow. As it did so, I became aware of my heart throwing itself desperately against my ribcage. The contrast of my rapidly increasing heart rate and the even quicker drop in the train's speed distracted me. I found juxtapositions morbidly fascinating, like the way children poke dead animals with sticks. Unlike dead animals, however, juxtapositions always cropped up at the most unfortunate times. When I had regained my senses, she was on her feet and moving towards the doors.

I hurled myself after her as best I could in the confined space of the car. I felt my limbs flying in odd directions and my spine making strange undulating motions as I tried to squeeze between other passengers without smashing through the roof of the car, but I didn't care. When I stepped on to the platform, any and all jokes and witticisms remained frighteningly absent from my head. So, I called out the first thing I could think of.

"What can I say right now to make you stay?"

She turned and looked at me appraisingly for a long moment. I surprised myself by holding her gaze evenly and betraying none of my trembling body parts. During that time, several eternities passed. Stars were born and died, galaxies inched across the universe, and the Fibonacci sequence swirled on in an endless spiral. Time stopped in the instant before she spoke and restarted again when the words left her throat.

"What's your name?"

I suddenly developed a stutter. My tongue got caught on the "T" in Tate and tripped over it in an ungainly manner.

"T…Tate. Tate Williams."

She smiled at last, showing even, ivory teeth. It was blinding.

"Nice to meet you, Tate Williams. I'm Emily Wellspring."

"Can I see you again, Emily Wellspring?" The words tumbled from my lips like overexcited children, but her smile only widened.

"If you come to Waterstone's any day but Sunday, I'll be there." A grin tugged at my mouth as the wind tugged at my hair.

"Good."

She ducked her head down as if to hide her grin. The wind (I assume it was the wind) had brought a soft blush to her porcelain cheeks. Really, she was extraordinarily beautiful. My heart was still pounding as she gave me one last look, turned, and walked away. I slipped back on the underground just before it departed and took my seat next to an overweight man who glared at me as if the mere sight of my idiotic smile offended him. I tried to assume a more sober expression, but the grin remained plastered to my face for most of the ride home, fading sometimes but always returning because I couldn't help thinking: today was Saturday. Tomorrow was Sunday. And the next day…the next day was Monday.

And on Monday, I would see her again.

Description
The first thing I noticed was the fez on her lap. I saw it as I scanned the tube for empty seats; a flash of red in the corner of my eye. It perched delicately on her thighs like a small, unassuming puppy that stared at passerby with large eyes, silently daring them to challenge its right to be there. I gaped at it; the train started forward with a jerk and I had to grab onto the metal pole in front of me to keep my balance. The ungainly motion of my body lurching forward caught the eye of the fez's owner; I saw her look up at me quickly, then duck her eyes down to her hands, which were diminutive and pale and folded neatly in her lap, just behind the fez. I sneezed loudly into the sleeve of my trench coat and she smiled. It was for barely an instant—and, it was probably an attack on my limbs and their length and the strangeness with which they moved—but it was enough to cause an unfamiliar tug inside me, not unlike the movement of the train.

She was definitely fetching, above average as far as good-looking females went. Her hair was soft and a rich, milk chocolate-brown, streaked with salmon pink highlights. It fell to her shoulders in loose curls with a light fringe that parted to the left and barely brushed her eyebrows. She was petite and pale, but rather curvy, and blessed with legs that were positively stunning. However, her most striking features were her eyes. They were russet-coloured, and they possessed a power and a glint that could've stopped people, stopped wars, stopped time. As they pulled me in, I inexplicably found myself doing something that I never did: I attempted to make conversation with a stranger on the train.

"Fezzes are cool," I said, inwardly wincing at the way my voice broke on "fezzes." She looked at me for a moment, and I was suddenly terrified that she wouldn't get the joke. Though it was commonly thought that everyone in England was raised on Doctor Who, in fact, I had yet to meet a girl who had seen more than a few episodes.

"Nice trench coat," she deadpanned back, "but you forgot the 3D glasses."

I let out the breath I had been subconsciously holding and proceeded to grin stupidly. The corners of her mouth twitched into something that was less than half a smile. It wasn't enough; I wanted to see her smile fully, teeth and all. There would have to be more jokes, I decided, and they would have contain Doctor Who references, as that was the only subject on which we seemed equally familiar.

"I'm actually Tom Baker," I said, touching one of the brown curls that sprung from my skull in homage to the wild-haired fourth Doctor, "but I left my scarf at home."

"You mean this one?" She reached into the bag next to her and pulled out the end of a multicolored scarf.

"Oh my god," I said. "The embarrassing thing is that I actually have the same one, and it actually is at my house." Even more embarrassing was the fact that the scarf—famed for its length—hung just above my ankles after being wrapped only twice around my neck.

"I'm sitting on the underground with a fez on my lap," she said. "It doesn't get much worse than that. Although," she added, "I am getting off in two stops."

"Yes, er, is there a particular reason for that?" I inquired nervously. Here was a girl who liked the only television show I cared about unashamedly, and, of all the miracles, didn't seem to be put off by my height. And I was actually talking with her. Nothing short of her mother going into labour or her grandmother's final words would make me let her leave.
"Which one?" She was smiling with her eyes but not her mouth. Of all the mysterious abilities girls possessed, I found this to be by far the most fascinating.

"Erm, either." I was five sentences into conversation with a stunningly pretty girl, and, if my track record was any indication, I would strike out by the tenth sentence. It was very likely that the end was approaching.

"There was a convention, in London," she said. "A Doctor Who one, obviously. And I'm getting off in two stops because that's closest to where I live."

Seven sentences.

"A convention. I tend to avoid those as a rule on account of, erm, people." This was it; I was faltering, and three sentences early at that—or so I thought. She glossed over my awkward admission as though I hadn't spoken.

"I met David Tennant," she said softly. "He's much shorter in person."

At that moment, the train halted. All around us, people stood up and began to inch their way towards the doors. I remained where I was, my gaze still fixed on her. She seemed to have shrunk in the space between her last words and now. Her hands were clenched in her lap. As the last overweight man squeezed past me, I darted from my pole and into the now-unoccupied spot next to her. She didn't even flinch as I folded, paperclip-like, into the place a bearded, leering man had just vacated.

"Tired of standing," I offered unnecessarily. As true as it was, it was also a shallow excuse to be closer to her, and she most likely knew it. "Why was Tennant there, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," she said in the same quiet voice. "I didn't ask."

Silence elapsed. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants. WE had passed the 10-sentence mark and into uncharted waters. I was nervous—not just jittery, but full-on, stomach-turning nerves, with all the clammy hands and awkward gestures besides. Our shoulders touched—or rather her shoulder touched my upper arm—and it was enough for me to feel her slump as she sighed. "Maybe he missed it. Being the Doctor, I mean."

"That's plausible," I said, jumping to attention. "Being the Doctor is pretty much the best job an actor can hope to have."

"Mmh." Then, "It was kind of anticlimactic."

"Meeting David Tennant?"

"Yeah. It's like…you know when you're a kid and you idolize, I dunno, a superhero? And you think he's the greatest, strongest, kindest person in existence and you're sure that nothing will ever make you think differently?"

"Yes?"

"But you get older," she continued, "And you discover other things, like music and sex and better television. Then, you find yourself looking back on that superhero and you realize that he wasn't that great. Meeting David Tennant was like that; it was that feeling of disappointment." She smiled ruefully. "I guess I built him up so much in my head that he couldn't live up to my expectations."

I fidgeted. I understood what she was saying, but I hadn't experienced it. I'd discovered neither music, nor sex, nor better television. This only increased my feeling that she was on a higher plane than I, standing on a lofty cloud to which I had not yet ascended. I estimated we were about the same age—perhaps she was younger, perhaps she was older; age always seems harder to guess in women—and yet she seemed to have wandered further down the path of life than I had. It was one of the many curious things about her. It was curious that we seemed so similar and yet so far apart. It was curious that this beautiful stranger had uttered such an all-encompassing truth in a manner so simple that someone much less intelligent than myself could have understood it. The most curious thing of all, however, was the fact that she said it to me, when I had introduced myself by way of a Doctor Who reference, and only because I found her rather fit. It seemed I was in the middle of one of those moments that only happen in novels, where something extraordinary disguised as something ordinary occurs.

"Why am I telling you this?" she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. "I don't even know your name." We glanced at each other at exactly the same time. She was the first to look away. The air between our gazes felt like it was ripping as she turned her head; her eyes were like a vise, holding mine in place until she decided to sever the connection. At that moment, I didn't have an answer for her question. The impact of having her eyes on mine was so visceral that their sudden absence left me feeling winded. I wasn't used to this. I never talked to strangers, and they rarely talked to me, yet somehow I was sitting on the underground with a gorgeous girl who also happened to be offering bits of her soul as if they were jellybeans. Not only that, but the way she was affecting me was so physical that it frightened me a little, if only because I'd never encountered anything like it before.

"You realize this is ridiculous, right?" I said. Outside, the walls of the tunnel blurred into an unidentifiable shape and colour. I pulled myself farther into my coat and bit my tongue as I waited for her to say something. It was impossible for me to make myself smaller, but I wished I could. I wished I could fold my shoulders in on themselves and vanish. When she continued to be silent, I swallowed and spoke again. "Last time I was here, the most interesting thing I saw was a guy with salmon-coloured hair and big glasses holding hands with a guy with dark hair and bigger glasses."

"I don't know." I peeked at her just in time to see the tiny smile that ghosted her pale lips. "That sounds pretty interesting." I shrugged. It felt like the movement of the continents.

"They were pretty, I guess."

Her smile widened. "Where are you coming from, anyway?"

"London, like you."

"I know that. But where in London?"

"Foyles," I said sheepishly. "Sometimes I'll hide on the fifth floor and pretend that someone's coming to find me." I realized it was pathetic as soon as I said it, so I hunched my shoulders and stared stoically at my hands. They were so large, but not in the rugged, powerful way that one associates with things like fathers and lumberjacks. The palms were wide, the fingers, long and slim. They looked like they should be able to either crush walnuts, or do something delicate and precise, like sewing. In truth, they could barely hold on to anything at all.

"Sometimes I open Waterstone's Piccadilly and stay till they throw me out," she said. "The sad part is that I pretend it's my shop and I'm closing up at night when I leave."

I laughed, and she mistook my delight for mockery.

"Yours was a lot worse, you know."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just…it's brilliant." Not for the first time, I wished that someone would equip me with a brain that understood how words fit in sentences.

"I'm taking a shot in the dark and assuming you won't think it's ridiculous that I've been trying to read 365 books every year for about five years now."

"Have you succeeded?"

"The closest I got was 183. No one has the time to read 365 books a year, anyway."

"I do..."

This was true. Ever since school had dropped me, reading was the only productive thing I did. My parents had all but given up on me. They disliked the fact that I spent so much time and money at bookshops, but at least it got me out of the house.

"Oh—erm—oh." She sounded like a girl in a period drama who has entered her front parlour only to find her husband ravishing another woman. Perhaps she thought she had offended me. Either way, I didn't say anything. The silence that elapsed was the kind that feels like a slap in the face and sounds blatant and ugly, like words such as "slam" or "holocaust." It was how I felt when I knew that someone was craning their neck back, trying to see my head through the clouds. I knew that the train ride would end soon, but there was a block inside me that took anything I had to say and throttled it in meaty fists. Somehow, we had stalled; somehow, our seemingly stable foundation of Doctor Who references and great truths and bookshops was crumbling beneath my feet.

Even as I thought it, the train began to slow. As it did so, I became aware of my heart throwing itself desperately against my ribcage. The contrast of my rapidly increasing heart rate and the even quicker drop in the train's speed distracted me. I found juxtapositions morbidly fascinating, like the way children poke dead animals with sticks. Unlike dead animals, however, juxtapositions always cropped up at the most unfortunate times. When I had regained my senses, she was on her feet and moving towards the doors.

I hurled myself after her as best I could in the confined space of the car. I felt my limbs flying in odd directions and my spine making strange undulating motions as I tried to squeeze between other passengers without smashing through the roof of the car, but I didn't care. When I stepped on to the platform, any and all jokes and witticisms remained frighteningly absent from my head. So, I called out the first thing I could think of.

"What can I say right now to make you stay?"

She turned and looked at me appraisingly for a long moment. I surprised myself by holding her gaze evenly and betraying none of my trembling body parts. During that time, several eternities passed. Stars were born and died, galaxies inched across the universe, and the Fibonacci sequence swirled on in an endless spiral. Time stopped in the instant before she spoke and restarted again when the words left her throat.

"What's your name?"

I suddenly developed a stutter. My tongue got caught on the "T" in Tate and tripped over it in an ungainly manner.

"T…Tate. Tate Williams."

She smiled at last, showing even, ivory teeth. It was blinding.

"Nice to meet you, Tate Williams. I'm Emily Wellspring."

"Can I see you again, Emily Wellspring?" The words tumbled from my lips like overexcited children, but her smile only widened.

"If you come to Waterstone's any day but Sunday, I'll be there." A grin tugged at my mouth as the wind tugged at my hair.

"Good."

She ducked her head down as if to hide her grin. The wind (I assume it was the wind) had brought a soft blush to her porcelain cheeks. Really, she was extraordinarily beautiful. My heart was still pounding as she gave me one last look, turned, and walked away. I slipped back on the underground just before it departed and took my seat next to an overweight man who glared at me as if the mere sight of my idiotic smile offended him. I tried to assume a more sober expression, but the grin remained plastered to my face for most of the ride home, fading sometimes but always returning because I couldn't help thinking: today was Saturday. Tomorrow was Sunday. And the next day…the next day was Monday.

And on Monday, I would see her again.