While I Was Away(8)

She couldn't think of the word. The name. Who was she going to tell about her amazing acid trip? Any humor she'd been finding in the situation died a swift death and she stared down at her pie. It was strawberry-rhubarb. Her favorite.

“You're not on acid, Adele,” the man told her. She glanced up at him.

“Who are you?” she asked. She was shocked when he held out his hand.

“I'm Johannes. I'm here to take care of you,” he answered. She froze with her hand halfway to his.

“Take care of me ...?” she sought for clarification. He leaned over the table and shook her hand anyway.

“Yes. Now eat – you must be hungry,” he insisted.

“If I eat, will you answer my questions?” she decided to barter.

“I will answer any question you can possibly think of,” he promised. So she shrugged and picked up her fork.

The pie was delicious. Just like her grandma used to make. And the guy was right, she was hungry. Voraciously so. While she shoveled the dessert into her mouth, she stole peeks at her new friend. She'd never met him before, she was positive She was good at remembering faces, and his was definitely a face she wouldn't have forgotten.

He was a dark, dirty blond, and his neatly done hair style matched her dress – a sort of 1950s pompadour. His shoulders were broad and his body lean, and when he'd walked with her into the train, she'd noted that he was fairly tall. At least over six foot.

His defining feature, though, was easily his eyes. A stunning shade of emerald green, she'd never seen eyes that shade before – light green, jade green, even mossy hazel eyes, sure. But never such a pure shade of emerald. Looking into his eyes was like looking into a forest, or a well, or a mine. She could feel herself getting lost in them.

You don't know where you are or who he is – stop acting like you're in some fairy tale.

Eventually, Adele wrapped her lips around the very last piece of pie. She moaned at how good it tasted, then shoved the plate and fork away from her. Brushed her hands against each other and down her dress to get rid of any crumbs. After slicking her tongue across her teeth to catch any stray pieces, she cleared her throat and looked straight at him again.

“Alright. Where am I?” she started with the questions immediately.

“You're on a train.”

“Ha ha. Who are you?”

“I told you, my name is Johannes.”

“Last name ...?”

“Sorry, no last names here.”

“But where is here?”

“Here is now.”

“Now?”

“Now was then. Now we're here,” he was very patient as he spoke absolute nonsense.

“Stop it. Just tell me ... what happened,” Adele tried again. He nodded his head.

“Alright. You were waiting to be picked up. I missed my train, so you went into the diner, I'm guessing. So nice of them to feed you – this train doesn't have a dining car,” he informed her. She stared at him for a long second, then took a deep breath.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?” she screamed.

He jumped out of his seat and she kept screaming, then started slapping at him when he came near her.

“Calm down, Adele. Calm down. If you get too upset, it won't be good for anybody,” he told her, trying to grab hold of her arms.

“Who gives a shit? I hope it's awful! Am I being kidnapped? Is that it? Did you drug and kidnap me!? HELP! HELP, I'M BEING ABDUCTED!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Bizarrely, he didn't try to quiet her. He actually started laughing. In fact, he seemed so unbothered by her accusations, she eventually stopped shouting them. She struggled against his hold and blinked away tears when he squatted in front of her.

“No. No, Adele, you're not being kidnapped,” he promised, reaching out and wiping away a tear that had managed to escape.

“Then what is going on? Why can't anyone tell me? Just tell me,” she pleaded.

“Because you won't listen.”

She looked away from him and didn't bother trying to stop the next set of tears. She began to shake in her seat as she quietly sobbed. He sighed and moved to sit on the seat next to her, forcing her close to the window. His arms came around her shoulders, holding her tightly in a sideways hug.

It should've been awkward, a complete stranger holding her, but it wasn't. He felt comforting. His touch, his smell, his presence. It was all familiar to her, somehow. She stared out the window and tried to remember how to breathe properly.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, can you see out the window?”

“Yes,” her voice was hoarse from all her shouting.

“Look ahead, if you can. What do you see?”

Adele craned her neck. The train was moving really fast. Faster than she'd known they were capable of. It was going around a slight bend, so she could see a mountain ahead of them. Or at least, she assumed it was a mountain – it was a solid wall of stone coming out of the ground, they were too close for her to see the top. She watched as the front cars of the train disappeared into a hole in the rock.

“I see a tunnel,” she whispered, then glanced back at him. He was smiling down at her.

“You know what that means,” he said. She shook her head and his smile got bigger. “You have to close your eyes, and hold your breath, and make a wish. If you can hold your breath until the other side of the tunnel, your wish will come true.”