✦ Short Fiction ✦

She was on the wrong train.

Layla had taken the 7:42 heading south instead of north, and by the time she realized, the city was already a blur of orange streetlights behind her. She sat down in the only empty seat — next to a girl with paint on her shoes and a novel held upside down.

"You're reading it backwards," Layla said, before she could stop herself.

The girl looked down at the book, then up at Layla. "I know. It's the only way I can focus. The story already happened — I just need the mood."

Layla laughed. It was the strangest thing anyone had ever said to her, and also somehow the most sensible.

They talked for forty minutes. About cities they'd left. About perfumes that reminded them of people they missed. About the specific loneliness of being surrounded by people who don't quite see you.

When the train stopped, the girl with the upside-down book stood up and said: "I think you were meant to take the wrong train."

She handed Layla a business card. Just a name — Mira — and a phone number.

That was seven years ago. They have been best friends ever since.

Some friendships don't start. They arrive.