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No one understood. That’s how it had been for all of Eira’s life.
With minimal effort, she could easily trace this lack of understanding to her earliest memories. Eira was born to the renowned Archibald family. Her parents, Seraphina and Blake, were both renowned doctors, and of course, expected no less from Eira.
Unfortunately, for them, Eira was a failure. From kindergarten, all the way to junior year of high school, that was all she had ever proven herself to be. Her grades were barely decent, she had a nasty temper, and she got along with nobody. At least that’s the way her parents saw her. That’s the way everyone saw her.
But Eira knew, deep down, she wasn’t like that. There was more to her. More to her that her parents knew, her classmates knew, more to her than she herself knew. And to find this person, she had to get away.
That’s why she left. That’s why, on the night of December 22nd, just three days before Christmas, she left her family’s house in New Haven, and boarded the first train that arrived.
She didn’t have much with her, just a bag that she filled with things she deemed essential: xxxxx
She had no clue where it was going. Yet, she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away, wherever away might be. She was so tired of constantly being misunderstood.
The sky was pitch-black, the train empty. She checked her phone to see what time it was: 3:04 A.M. She’d left home at 2:30, her parents had been asleep. She wondered when they would notice, or if they would at all. They were always too busy to notice her, unless she messed up. They only cared when she did something wrong.
Eira sighed. Her parents would find out eventually, and when they did, they would freak. But she didn’t care. She was done bending her back in hopes of being their perfect daughter. She was tired of wringing herself dry just to please them. She was going to be free now.
She looked out the window behind her. It was snowing. As she watched the snowflakes fall from the sky and land on the window, she noticed an eerie silence. The train was quiet, almost too quiet. Silence made her think, and if she thought, she would begin to doubt the reason she was here anyways, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. She slipped airpods into her ears and blasted music as loud as she could.
Eira looked around, observing her surroundings. She noticed that there was only one other person on the train right now, a boy who looked about roughly the same age as her. She continued to look at him, something about him caught her attention. As if he felt her eyes on him, he looked up at her too. Eira noticed his appearance: his skin was a light brown, his curls dropped right below his ears, he wore a baggy shirt and a lousy coat, even though it was winter. They exchanged no words, but their eye contact said enough. She felt compelled by him, she wanted to speak, to say something, but no words came out. Though this was the first time she’d seen him, looking into this stranger’s eyes made her feel understood. Seen. That was a first. Something in her knew that he was just like her.
And for him, it was no different.
Suddenly, the boy stood up from his seat, and sat down right next to her.
“What’s your story?”
He spoke quietly, so much so that if she hadn’t been looking at him, she probably wouldn’t have noticed he was speaking at all. He looked to her for her response.
Eira didn’t quite know what to say. That wasn’t your usual conversation starter. “My story. I’ve been asking myself the 17 years I’ve been alive. My story only begins today.”
The boy stared at her, and began to snicker.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“No, nothing is funny. It’s just, it’s weird to hear someone, you know, I can’t put it into words-“ he began.
Eira interjected, “To say exactly how you feel.”
“Exactly. I could tell by the look in your eyes, you’re just like me.” The boy stuck out his hand, “Jackie.”
She took his hand, “Eira.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Eira,” he said, cracking a smile. It warmed her heart, no one had ever been glad to have met her.
“You know, when you mentioned the look in my eyes, I feel like I saw the same thing in yours. What are you doing here, at this time of night anyway?”
“I could ask you the same the question.”
She looked up at him, and let out a smile. “Well too bad, because I asked first. What are you doing here?”
He looked at her, and in his eyes, she saw the same feeling she had felt her entire life. The one that she could not name. A feeling of despair, mixed with useless hope.
“I’m here,” he started, “because I have to get away.”
Eira wanted to say that she got him, she understood. But she held back. She wanted him to have the chance to tell his story uninterrupted, because she knew what it felt like to be left unheard.
“I’m sure you can tell, but I’ve been an eternal loser. I have never succeeded, so I have always been deemed as a failure. I flunk my classes, can’t seem to make my family or teachers happy, and I don’t have much friends. It’s like, everyone’s telling me that I won’t amount to anything, so I’ve just lost all hope. What’s the point of proving them wrong, you know?
“Or at least that’s how I used to think, anyway. But now? I want to turn it around. I want to actually do something with my life, why should I sit inside that sadness? Or this feeling of failure? I want to be known for more. But I can’t do that in a place where people have this fixed idea of me. I have to get away.”