Chapter Text
Shunammite was never late.
This was an important distinction, mostly because everyone kept saying that she was.
Almost late, yes. Often. Frequently. With passion and commitment. But actually late? Rarely. Rarely enough that she considered it a character strength and not, as Agnes once called it, “a worrying pattern of spiritual disorder.”
Which was rich coming from someone who alphabetized her highlighters.
The point was, Shunammite had a system.
It was not a good system, but it was a system.
Her alarm went off at 6:12. She ignored it until 6:19. She sat up at 6:23 and contemplated, very seriously, whether the TCDSB system would suffer without her presence. Then she remembered she had a half-finished charcoal study in the art room, a theology quiz she had not studied for, and a group of friends who would definitely notice if she died but would also make the funeral about attendance.
So she got up.
Every morning went like that.
A small resurrection. A tiny martyrdom. A performance of discipline that fooled absolutely no one.
By the time she made it to Kipling Station, her hair was usually still damp at the ends, her necklace was usually crooked, and her art folder was usually tucked under one arm like she was personally transporting state secrets instead of sketches of hands, shoes, and the same stained glass window from three different angles.
The benefit of living at the end of the line was that the train was usually empty enough for Shunammite to pretend she was not choosing anything.
Choosing a seat.
Choosing a routine.
Choosing a spot near the second set of doors of the third car because Becka had once said, very seriously, that it “optimized the transfer.”
Shunammite had told her that was the most horrifying sentence anyone had ever said before seven in the morning.
Becka had only blinked at her and said, “It saves four minutes when transferring lines.”
Four minutes.
As if four minutes were something you had to rescue from the jaws of death and tuck neatly into a binder.
Becka had a lot of binders.
Shunammite got on at Kipling and sat in their usual spot.
Her usual spot.
Whatever.
The seat beside her was empty.
It was always empty.
They never discussed this.
They never said, Shunammite saves Becka a seat every morning, because saying it would make it real in a way neither of them had agreed to. It would turn a habit into evidence. And Shunammite was very careful with evidence, especially the kind that made her want things.
So she just dropped her art folder across the seat until Royal York and acted like this was a neutral act of public transit survival.
The train pulled out of Kipling with its usual tired groan, carrying her eastward with a handful of office workers, two boys from some other school watching TikToks without headphones, and an old woman in purple gloves who always sat across from her and seemed to judge everyone with divine accuracy.
Islington passed.
Shunammite looked down at her sketchbook very quickly.
This was also part of the system.
At Royal York, Becka boarded with three binders, one blue, one white, one pale green, all stacked against her chest like academic armour. Her track bag hung from one shoulder. Her ponytail was smooth enough to seem morally superior. Her uniform looked like it had entered the morning voluntarily.
Becka was the kind of person who arrived early enough to make being on time look lazy.
She stepped into the car, glanced once toward their spot, and paused.
Only for a second.
Then she walked over.
Shunammite moved her art folder from the empty seat like she had not been guarding it with her life.
“Morning,” Becka said, settling beside her and immediately arranging her binders on her lap.
“Debatable.”
Becka took out a pencil. “Did you sleep?”
“Spiritually? No.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is if you respect my artistic process.”
“I respect sleep more.”
“Very rude. Very anti-feminist.”
Becka finally looked up.
That was always the first dangerous part of their morning not-routine.
Becka did not look dangerous in an obvious way. In fact, she looked like she had been assembled by a guidance counsellor’s dream board. Honour roll. Track captain. Student council. Polite to adults. Good posture. Probably hydrated.
But then she looked up, and Shunammite remembered that Becka had eyes that made paying attention feel like being caught.
Sleepy eyes, today. A little soft around the edges. Her mascara was neat, because of course it was, but one small strand of hair had come loose near her temple.
Shunammite hated noticing things like that.
“You’re wet,” Becka said.
Shunammite glanced down at her school-mandated polo shirt. “I’m alive. Bodies contain water.”
“Your hair.”
“It’s called showering. Some of us are devoted to personal hygiene.”
“At six forty?”
“Artists suffer.”
“You’re going to get sick.”
“Oh no. Then I’ll miss school. Tragic.”
Becka gave her the look she used when someone was being deliberately impossible and she had decided, very generously, not to report them to a higher power.
Shunammite liked that look.
Shunammite especially liked that look when it was directed toward her.
She liked a lot of things she had no business liking.
So she looked away first and pulled her sketchbook out of her bag.
Becka opened her blue binder, clipped a worksheet neatly in place, and started doing homework because Becka apparently saw a moving subway car as an extension of the library.
Shunammite opened to a clean page and started drawing Becka’s shoes.
They were awful.
There was no gentler way to put it. Becka’s running shoes were expensive, probably excellent for arches or impact or whatever athletic people cared about, but visually they were a crime. Black to adhere to school policy (because everyone knew coloured shoes would cause teenagers to suddenly act out) clunky, too serious, too clearly purchased after reading reviews.
Becka noticed before Old Mill.
“Are you drawing my shoes again?”
“They have a tragic presence.”
“They’re good shoes.”
“That’s exactly the problem. Good shoes are never beautiful.”
Becka looked down at them, offended on their behalf. “They’re functional.”
“So is a toilet.”
“Shu.”
“What? Toilets are very important. Society would collapse without them.”
Becka pressed her pencil to her worksheet and tried not to smile.
Shunammite saw it anyway.
That was the thing about Becka. She was always trying not to smile. She treated amusement like a pop quiz she had not studied for. Like if she laughed too easily, some essential part of her discipline would unravel and she would start failing chemistry and robbing banks.
Shunammite made it her personal duty to endanger her.
“You should draw something else,” Becka said.
“Like what?”
“The ads.”
“The ads are ugly.”
“The stations?”
“Also ugly.”
“The people?”
“That’s illegal.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is morally illegal.”
“You literally drew Sister Helena last week as a goblin.”
“That was political commentary.”
Becka’s mouth twitched again. “You’re impossible in the morning.”
“I’m impossible all day. You’re just privileged enough to get a private preview.”
The old woman in purple gloves made a sound that might have been a cough or might have been approval.
Becka went back to her homework.
This was the shape of things.
The train moved. Becka worked. Shunammite drew. The city slid past underground and unseen, station names arriving one after another like beads on a rosary they never really chanted wholeheartedly.
Old Mill. Jane. Runnymede.
Becka’s handwriting was small and clean. Shunammite knew this because Becka did homework on the train every morning and because Shunammite, despite having no interest in advanced functions at any hour, had an interest in Becka’s hands.
For artistic reasons of course.
Which was unfortunate.
Becka held her pencil too tightly. She always had a little dent near her finger by the time they got to school. Sometimes she rubbed at it without noticing. Sometimes Shunammite noticed that too and wanted to do something insane, like take the pencil away and gently cradle her hand.
Instead, she shaded the heel of Becka’s ugly shoe with unnecessary violence.
“You’re going to rip the page,” Becka said.
“Your shoes deserve consequences.”
“They won regionals.”
“You won regionals. The shoes were just present.”
“They helped.”
“Did they write the thank-you speech too?”
Becka finally laughed.
Small. Quiet. Gone quickly.
But there.
Shunammite kept her eyes on the page like it did not matter.
It mattered a little.
A lot.
A normal amount.
The train rocked between Jane and Runnymede, and Becka’s binder slid slightly against her knees. She caught it with one hand without even looking. Reflexive. Annoying. Competent.
Shunammite hated competent people. They made the rest of humanity look experimental.
“You have charcoal on your cuff,” Becka said.
Shunammite glanced at her sleeve. “Occupational hazard.”
“And on your face.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Where?”
Becka leaned closer, squinting with unnecessary focus. “There.”
She pointed at Shunammite’s cheek.
Shunammite wiped the wrong side accidentally.
Or maybe on purpose.
Plausible deniability.
“No,” Becka said. “Other side.”
Shunammite wiped her chin.
Becka stared at her. “Are you doing this badly on purpose?”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
“Prove it in court.”
Becka sighed, but it was the kind of sigh that meant she had already decided to help. She set her worksheet on top of her binder and reached into her pocket for a tissue.
This was another thing about Becka. She had tissues. And extra pens. And hair ties. And tiny packets of Advil she refused to hand out unless someone had eaten first. She was like if a first-aid kit got baptized and joined track.
“Hold still,” Becka said.
“No.”
“Shunammite.”
“Fine.”
Becka leaned in and dabbed at Shunammite’s cheek with the corner of the tissue.
It should not have felt like anything.
It was a tissue. On her face. At seven in the morning. On the TTC. There were probably at least three kinds of airborne disease between them. It was not romantic. It was barely sanitary.
Still, Shunammite went very still.
Becka smelled like laundry detergent and vanilla lip balm and the faint sharpness of winter air trapped in wool. Her hand was careful at Shunammite’s jaw. Her brows drew together in concentration, like removing charcoal from someone’s face required the same focus as a final exam.
Shunammite looked at the collar of Becka’s polo instead of her mouth.
That was safer.
Mostly.
“There,” Becka said.
“Am I beautiful again?”
“You were never not.”
The words came out too easily.
Both of them noticed.
Becka froze for half a second, tissue still near Shunammite’s cheek.
Shunammite looked at her then.
Becka’s eyes widened, just a little, like she had surprised herself more than anyone. A flush crept up from her collar, soft and immediate.
Then she looked down at the tissue.
“I mean,” Becka said quickly, “you were—there wasn’t that much charcoal.”
“Right.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
A silence opened between them.
Not a bad one.
Shunammite could survive awkward silence. She was excellent at it. She could weaponize it, decorate it, sit inside it like a throne. But this was not awkward exactly. It was warm in a way that made no sense. It sat too close. It breathed.
The train kept moving.
High Park. Keele. Dundas West.
Becka picked up her pencil again, but she was not writing. Shunammite pretended not to notice. Then she noticed herself pretending not to notice, which was much worse.
So she did the only reasonable thing.
She went back to being annoying.
“You’re bad at compliments,” Shunammite said.
Becka’s shoulders dropped, relieved. “You’re bad at receiving them.”
“I receive compliments beautifully. People are just bad at giving them.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It’s one of my gifts.”
Becka shook her head, smiling down at her homework now.
Good.
Normal.
They were normal.
They were two girls in the same friend group attending the same Catholic high school who took the same train because geography had cursed them. They sat together because Becka lived near Royal York and Shunammite lived near Kipling and apparently the entire west end of Toronto had decided to make itself emotionally inconvenient. They talked because silence would be weird. Shunammite kept the seat because she got on first.
That was all.
It was not a thing.
Things required intention. Things required naming. Things required someone else noticing, and Shunammite had no intention of giving the universe that kind of opportunity.
Except she had noticed.
She noticed everything.
She noticed that Becka always took the inside seat once she got on, even though Shunammite was technically there first, because Shunammite hated being trapped by the window and Becka never made her say that.
She noticed that Becka complained when Shunammite brought iced coffee onto the train but still held it whenever Shunammite needed both hands for her sketchbook.
She noticed that Becka always checked her phone around Bathurst.
Not obviously. Not in a dramatic, desperate way. Becka was too controlled for that. But her hand would slide into her pocket. Her thumb would wake the screen. Her eyes would flick down.
And if Agnes had texted, Becka changed.
Just a little.
Enough.
Shunammite knew the order of Becka’s mornings before she knew what to do with the knowledge.
First came Royal York.
Then the homework.
Then the little breath she took when the train pulled into St. George, right before Agnes stepped onto the train and Becka became brighter for someone else.
It was one of those things in friend groups between girls that nobody said because saying it would be tacky. Cruel, maybe. Or just unnecessary.
Two of them were always closer to each other.
And everyone knew Agnes and Becka were closer.
They had history. Real history. The kind people respected even. They moved around each other with the practiced ease of girls who had shared secrets in bathrooms and cried in each other’s bedrooms and learned, over years, exactly how the other liked their coffee.
Shunammite was their friend too.
Of course she was.
She sat with them at lunch. She was in the group chat. Agnes asked her about art competitions. Becka sent her pictures of bad church bulletin designs because she knew Shunammite would have opinions. They were friends.
But there were friends, and then there were people who got chosen first without anyone having to think.
Agnes was Becka’s first thought.
Becka was Agnes’s too.
Or she had been.
Recently, there was Daisy.
Daisy was new, which made everyone interested. Transfer students always arrived with an unfair advantage because they had no established sins. They could be anything for at least three weeks. Daisy was quiet and pretty in a careful way, with an accent people leaned in to hear and a habit of looking overwhelmed that made Agnes’s entire student-president soul light up with purpose.
Agnes had been showing her around all week.
Agnes had also been texting Becka less.
Shunammite knew this because Becka checked her phone more.
She hated knowing this.
She hated, specifically, that she knew it before Becka said anything.
At Keele, more students got on. By Dufferin, the car filled with backpacks and wet boots and that particular morning smell of deodorant, cold air, and resentment. Someone’s music leaked tinny and terrible from their headphones.
Becka wrinkled her nose.
“What?” Shunammite asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re judging.”
“Is that illegal now?”
“It is, according to city bylaws.”
“You’ve never read a bylaw in your life.”
“I’ve skimmed. For crimes.”
Becka’s laugh came easier this time. She leaned back against the seat, pencil still in hand, and for a second she looked almost relaxed.
Then she looked at Shunammite’s necklace.
Her expression changed.
“What?” Shunammite said.
“Your necklace.”
Shunammite looked down. The only form of individuality she currently wore, which was dramatic, considering it was a tiny charm on a chain and not, say, a manifesto.
Chokers were immediate detention. Anything hanging over the collar was detention once a teacher noticed, which usually took anywhere from four seconds to three business days depending on the teacher’s caffeine levels. Necklaces tucked under the polo were mostly safe. Slightly visible necklaces existed in a legal gray area, especially if the teacher liked you, feared your parents, or associated you with Becka and Agnes, which was basically diplomatic immunity.
Currently, her necklace was not performing at its best. The charm had slipped backward, the chain had gone crooked, and the whole thing had escaped her collar to sit proudly over her shirt like it had rights.
Shunammite personally thought it was avant-garde.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s out in the open, for anyone to see.”
“So am I, emotionally.”
“Come here.”
“No.”
“Shunammite.”
“You’re very bossy for someone with ugly shoes.”
“Come here before Principal Lydia sees you and makes it a virtue issue.”
“Principal Lydia thinks breathing can be a virtue issue.”
“She’s not wrong.”
Shunammite rolled her eyes but leaned closer.
Becka set her homework aside again and turned toward her fully.
This was already inconsiderate.
Then Becka’s hands came up to her collar, and Shunammite, despite years of mediocre religious education, said a quick and deeply useless prayer.
Becka’s fingers were cool from the platform. They brushed the back of Shunammite’s neck as she reached for the chain, careful and matter-of-fact, like this was a normal thing girls did on trains. Like this was not a direct attack on Shunammite’s ability to remain a person.
“Did you do this in the dark?” Becka asked.
“I did it with artistic instinct.”
“You did it wrong.”
“Same thing.”
Becka clicked her tongue softly, undoing the top button of Shunammite’s polo with quick, practiced motions.
Shunammite had clearly been a saint in a previous life.
A minor saint. Patron of public transit disasters and girls who could not act normal.
“You know, if you learned how to do this properly, I wouldn’t have to fix it every time.”
“You don’t have to fix it.”
Becka looked up.
Her hands were still at Shunammite’s collar.
The train lights flickered once overhead, brief and ugly.
“I know,” Becka said.
Something in Shunammite’s stomach moved.
Not butterflies. She refused butterflies. Butterflies were for people who wrote diary entries with gel pens and dotted their i’s with hearts.
This was more like missing a step in the dark and discovering, halfway down, that gravity had developed a personal interest in you.
Becka looked back down quickly and started tucking the charm into the newly exposed hollow at Shunammite’s throat. She redid the topmost button over the chain afterwards. Her fingers moved with irritating confidence. Loop, pull, flatten. A small frown settled between her brows.
Shunammite should have said something.
She was usually good at saying something. Too good. She could fill a silence with so much nonsense that nobody noticed the truth drowning underneath it.
But Becka was close.
Too close.
Close enough that Shunammite could count the tiny freckles near her nose. Close enough to see the place where her lip gloss had smudged faintly at the corner of her mouth. Close enough to realize Becka’s lashes were not perfectly even, which felt like private information and therefore a crime.
The train jerked.
Hard.
Someone near the doors swore. A backpack slammed into a pole. The whole car lurched sideways with the violent indifference of public transit.
Becka grabbed Shunammite on instinct.
Both hands.
One fisted in the shirt by her neck. The other caught her shoulder.
Shunammite’s back hit the seat divider. Becka’s body pitched into hers, one knee pressing against Shunammite’s, their faces suddenly so close that every thought Shunammite had ever had abandoned her at once.
Becka’s breath hitched.
Shunammite felt it more than heard it.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Becka’s hands were still on her.
Shunammite’s hand had landed at Becka’s waist. She had no memory of putting it there. It just was. A fact. A disaster. Something that belonged in confession if either of them had the vocabulary for it.
The train clattered onward.
No one around them seemed to notice, which was insane. Shunammite felt like alarms should be going off. Like the old woman in purple gloves should be standing up to announce that something significant and humiliating had happened between two Catholic school girls under the supervision of the Toronto Transit Commission.
But no one looked.
Only Becka.
Becka looked at her.
Her eyes were wide, startled. Her mouth was parted slightly, the smudge of gloss still there, impossible and stupid and suddenly the only thing in the world Shunammite understood.
It would have been easy to move.
It would have been easy not to.
Shunammite’s fingers tightened, barely, against Becka's waist.
Becka noticed.
Of course she did.
Her gaze dropped.
Just for a second.
Just enough.
Then the speaker crackled overhead.
“Arriving at St. George. St. George Station. Change here for Line 1. Doors will open on the right.”
The words cut through the car, flat and mechanical and devastating.
Becka blinked.
The doors opened.
And there, on the platform, was Agnes.
Of course.
Agnes stood near the yellow line in her perfect navy coat, hair tucked behind one ear, student council tote bag over her shoulder. Daisy stood beside her, looking down at something on Agnes’s phone. Agnes was smiling as she explained it, bright and patient and focused.
Then she looked up.
Becka moved away like the train had announced a fire.
It was instant.
Almost impressive.
Her hands left Shunammite. Her knee shifted back. She smoothed her shirt, then her hair, as if anyone could see what had almost happened just by looking at her.
Maybe they could.
Shunammite stayed very still.
Her necklace was perfect now.
That felt offensive.
“Agnes is here,” Becka said.
As if Shunammite did not have eyes.
As if Agnes had not entered the train before she even stepped inside.
As if Becka’s whole body had not changed at the sight of her.
“Yeah,” Shunammite said.
Her voice came out normal.
Or at least she hoped so.
Agnes stepped into the car with Daisy behind her, bringing cold platform air and the faint smell of expensive shampoo.
“Good morning,” Agnes said, smiling at them both.
At them both.
But looking first at Becka.
Becka smiled back.
There it was.
The train face.
Gone was the face Becka wore while doing homework, or listening to Shunammite insult her shoes, or laughing when she forgot not to. This was brighter. Straighter. Prepared. Like Agnes’s attention pulled a string through the middle of her and made every part of her sit up.
“Morning,” Becka said.
Daisy gave a small wave. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Shunammite said.
Daisy looked at Shunammite.
Looked down at the collar of Shunnamite's polo.
Then at Becka.
Then at the hand Becka had just snatched back from Shunammite’s neck.
Then, very politely, she looked at the floor.
Shunammite decided immediately that Daisy knew too much.
It was unfair, because Daisy had been at school for approximately three days and should not yet have developed powers of silent judgment.
Agnes’s gaze flicked to Shunammite’s necklace. “Oh. You fixed it.”
Becka’s cheeks went pink.
Shunammite smiled without showing teeth. “Divine intervention.”
Daisy made a tiny sound like she had witnessed a crime and chosen not to testify.
Becka did not look at Shunammite.
Agnes laughed lightly and took the pole beside Becka. Daisy stood next to her, close enough that their sleeves touched when the train started moving again.
The car was more crowded now. Louder. The private morning was over.
It always ended at St. George.
That was the rule.
Except this time, because God had a sense of humour and apparently a working relationship with the TTC, the rule became complicated.
“Wait,” Agnes said as the train began moving east again. “Were we supposed to transfer?”
Becka froze.
Shunammite looked up.
The train had already pulled away from St. George.
For one long, deeply stupid second, all four of them stared at one another.
Then Daisy said, very carefully, “I think so.”
Agnes closed her eyes. “We were supposed to transfer.”
Becka’s face went through five stages of grief and landed on academic panic.
“I optimized this,” she said.
Shunammite blinked.
“We need Line 1.” Becka said, already gathering her binder as if this were a natural disaster that could be solved with posture. “We’re going to be late.”
“Late?” Shunammite echoed. “To school? During school hours? While already suffering?”
Agnes checked her phone. “If we get off at Bay, we can transfer at St. George.”
“Bay doesn’t connect to Line 1,” Becka said immediately.
Shunammite readjusted her bag and became intensely interested in the floor tile by her shoe.
It was a very compelling tile.
Much more compelling than being ignored by someone whose hands had been on her collar thirty seconds ago.
“I know. I meant get off and take the westbound back.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You did not say that.”
“I implied it with urgency.”
Daisy watched them all with the calm, fascinated expression of a girl who had just discovered that the TTC map was somehow less complicated than this friend group's dynamics.
Shunammite sat very still.
Her face was hot.
This was, objectively, Becka’s fault.
Or maybe hers.
Or the TTC’s.
Possibly all three.
Because they had almost kissed, and then Agnes had arrived, and Becka had panicked, and Shunammite had sat there with a perfectly fixed necklace and no thoughts, and now they had missed the transfer Becka had been allegedly optimizing.
It was not funny.
It was extremely funny.
She could feel laughter rising in her chest, terrible and inappropriate.
Becka saw it.
“Don’t,” Becka said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
Agnes watched them bicker with a fond smile.
Daisy watched them bicker with a knowing smile.
The train pulled into Bay.
The doors opened.
Becka stood so quickly one of her binders nearly slid off her lap.
Shunammite caught it.
Of course she did.
Their fingers brushed when Becka took it back.
Tiny. Nothing.
Catastrophic.
Again.
“Thanks,” Becka said, too quickly.
Daisy glanced at their fingers as Becka took the binder back.
Not obviously. Daisy did not seem like the kind of person who did anything obviously.
But Shunammite saw it.
Worse, Becka saw it too.
“Thanks,” Becka said again, despite having already said it.
Daisy nodded like this was normal, which meant she knew it absolutely was not.
Agnes stepped onto the platform first, already practical, already in motion. “Come on. We’ll go back to St. George.”
Becka followed, visibly trying to recover her dignity through efficient walking.
Shunammite slung her art folder under her arm and stepped out last.
Daisy fell into step beside her.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Daisy said, very softly, “Does this happen often?”
Shunammite looked at her.
Daisy’s face was innocent.
Too innocent.
Shunammite narrowed her eyes. “Does what happen?”
Daisy glanced ahead, where Becka was talking to Agnes about train timing with the intensity of someone trying to turn embarrassment into logistics.
Then she looked back at Shunammite.
“Nothing,” Daisy said.
Shunammite was immediately overcome with a newfound respect for Daisy.
Daisy had witnessed the disaster, identified the bodies, and chosen discretion.
They crossed to the Line 1 platform.
Becka stood near the yellow line, arms crossed over her binders, mouth pressed into a line. Agnes was beside her, checking the time and saying something reassuring. Becka nodded, brightening slightly under Agnes’s attention.
There it was again.
The shift.
The pulling of the string.
Shunammite watched it happen from two feet away with a crooked necklace that was no longer crooked, which somehow made the whole thing worse.
Daisy stood beside her and said nothing.
A westbound train arrived.
They got on.
For one stop, nobody sat.
There was no point.
They stood together in the crowded car, swaying with the movement of the train, Becka beside Agnes, Daisy beside the pole, Shunammite beside her own bad decisions.
At St. George, they got off again.
This time, they transferred properly.
Becka tapped her Presto card against her palm while they walked, like she needed something to do with her hands.
Shunammite noticed.
Then noticed that she noticed.
Then considered walking directly into a wall.
Agnes was saying something about homeroom and attendance and how Sister Vidala would understand if they explained.
Becka nodded, eager and attentive.
Daisy listened.
Shunammite trailed half a step behind.
The whole thing had taken maybe five extra minutes.
One missed transfer.
One corrective train ride.
One small public transit loop caused by two girls almost doing something stupid between stations.
It was nothing.
Really.
People missed transfers all the time. Toronto was full of them. Missed trains. Missed stops. Missed chances. Entire lives rerouted by thirty seconds and one bad decision.
This was not special.
It was not.
It was not.
But when they finally reached the Line 1 platform, Becka glanced back.
Only once.
Away from Agnes.
At Shunammite.
Her face was still flushed. Her ponytail was still perfect. Her mouth was still glossed, still smudged faintly at the corner, still infuriatingly there.
Then she looked away.
Quickly.
Like looking had been a mistake.
Shunammite tightened her grip on her art folder.
Across from her, Daisy silently observed the disaster.
Shunammite could feel it.
Daisy was going to be a problem.
The train arrived, doors opening with a tired sigh.
Agnes stepped in first.
Becka followed.
Daisy went next.
Shunammite stepped in last and found herself standing beside Becka again, because apparently the TTC believed in assigned suffering.
Their shoulders did not touch.
Almost.
Not quite.
A gap small enough to be accidental.
Large enough to be denial.
Becka stared straight ahead.
Shunammite stared at the reflection in the dark window.
Agnes talking.
Becka glowing.
Daisy watching.
And Shunammite, slightly behind them in the glass, necklace hidden under her uniform, hair still damp, mouth pressed into a line like she had not almost let herself believe something stupid between Bathurst and St. George.
It was fine.
It was just a train ride.
It was just a seat.
It was just Becka, who got on at Royal York every morning and somehow always looked relieved when the place beside Shunammite was still open.
It was just Shunammite, who sat there because Kipling was the start of the line and somebody had to keep the seat from being taken by a stranger with a large backpack and bad vibes.
It was just one missed transfer.
That was all.
The train rattled toward school, carrying them under the city, and Shunammite told herself this with the steady discipline of someone repeating a prayer she did not believe in.
It was not a thing.
It was not.
It was not.