They probably looked homeless under this blanket, on this train, catching it for shelter rather than to reach a destination. His head was heavy against her shoulder. She had pulled a blanket around them, over them—Janey and Ryan. She heard the symmetry, saw it, the shared a, y, n. They were moving somewhere new, far away, to a house on Evangelina Street. It sounded holy.
*
They probably looked drug-fucked, coming down. They both tasted of the bottle of Coke they bought from the cafe car and of each other. She kissed him and he kissed her, until he fell asleep. It was 6am. His sugary mouth had slowed, his tongue too, and it was languorous and a dream and the train shuttled so fast down the line it was flying. She felt him go, drift to sleep. She brought his head against her shoulder to rest there and realized the movement was maternal and that was yet another type of love.
*
They probably looked like they were doing something to each other beneath the blanket. They held hands there. It had started as a fist, two hands holding on so tightly. With sleep, his grip had loosened so that it wasn’t a grip at all anymore and now his hand lay slack, like that of the sick or dying. Open palmed, helpless, giving up, forgetting everything. Her mouth was kissed raw, on the edge of bleeding. She stayed awake and her hand lay still in his, their hands the same wingspan.
*
They probably looked like kids having sex on the train, her taking him in her mouth. His eyes fluttered open. His hand tightened around hers. He lifted his head from her shoulder.
“We’ll be there soon,” she said.
He smiled.
Then his hand went to her face, her hair. He called her pretty and my angel. She laid her head in his lap. He held her head as she descended, as if he was bringing her down to him.
*
They probably looked like they would live forever. They were both only seventeen, too young, she knew that. She turned her face up and there he was, yawning, staring out the window, waking or falling asleep again. Stay here. Stay with me. She looked past him, out the window as well, the clouds racing past, scraps of gray in a white, luminous sky.