The Girl with the Green Scarf

The first time I saw her, it was on the 6:42 a.m. train from Willowridge to Northcrest. She wore a pale green scarf and held her coffee like it was the only warmth she had in the world. I never believed in love at first sight. I still don't. But there was something about the way she looked out the window, as if searching for something that kept escaping her.

I sat three rows behind her, every day, for two weeks.

It wasn’t obsession. At least, not yet. It was fascination. Curiosity. She always got off two stops before mine. Always alone. She never spoke, never smiled. But once—just once—she laughed, quietly, at a text on her phone, and I realized I wanted to be the reason she laughed like that again.

The first words I said to her were borrowed.

"Is this seat taken?"

There were other empty seats. I knew that. She looked up, slightly startled. I felt stupid, like some cliché guy in a movie. But she smiled.

“No. Go ahead.”

I sat down.

Her name was Aria. I learned that two weeks later.

She was a photographer, freelance, mostly nature and editorial shoots. She lived with a gray cat named Basil and drank her coffee black, no sugar. I never liked black coffee before. I do now.

We spoke often after that. Never more than a few minutes. Sometimes about books, or weather, or music....she loved Bon Iver and hated elevators. Once, I asked her what her favorite place in the world was. She said:

“Anywhere that feels like nowhere.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but I nodded like I did. It sounded beautiful.

One morning, she didn’t show up.

No green scarf. No coffee. No Aria.

The seat next to me stayed empty for three days. I told myself I didn’t care. I didn’t even know her last name. But the silence felt wrong. Heavy.

Then, on the fourth day, she returned.

Hair damp, cheeks flushed.

“Sorry,” she said, sliding into the seat. “Got stuck in the storm. Power went out, cat freaked.”

She looked tired, but happy to see me. Or maybe I imagined the second part.

“I brought you something.”

She handed me a polaroid. A tree, bent by wind, standing alone in a field of snow. Soft, haunting, delicate.

“It reminded me of you,” she said.

I stared at it, unsure whether to say thank you or fall in love with her right then and there.

Spring came late that year.

By then, the seat beside me was no longer a question. It was hers. And she always took it.

We started meeting outside the train. Once at a bookshop. Once at a tiny café that served terrible lasagna but had the best jazz playlist in town. I asked if she wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t moving. A place that stayed still. She laughed.

“Stillness is scarier than movement,” she said.

I kissed her on a platform in May.

The train was late. The moment wasn’t.

She didn’t pull away.

We never called it love. Not really. We didn’t need to.

Some mornings we sat in silence, hands just close enough to almost touch. Other days, we talked about everything....her parents in Vermont, my failed novel, the time she broke her ankle chasing a sunset in Iceland.

It was the kind of closeness that feels like it was always there, just waiting to be found.

Then she started missing days again.

First once a week. Then more.

When I asked, she smiled too tightly.

“Just busy,” she said.

And then:

“I might be leaving for a while. A photo assignment. Europe.”

“Where in Europe?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

She stopped coming altogether in July.

I waited two weeks before finally asking the conductor if he’d seen her.

He hadn’t.

I tried calling. The number was no longer in service.

Her apartment was empty.

No forwarding address.

Just gone.

Like a ghost who had slipped off the train.

I still ride the 6:42.

The seat beside me stays empty.

Sometimes, I bring out the polaroid she gave me. The tree, bent by wind. Still standing.

I think about how she said she liked places that felt like nowhere.

And maybe that’s where she is now.

Nowhere.

Or maybe she became part of that quiet rhythm of movement and stillness. The kind you only notice when it’s gone.

I never learned her last name.

Never knew where she really went.

But sometimes, on rainy mornings, I imagine she’s on a train somewhere in Europe, coffee in hand, camera around her neck, chasing a sunset that never quite stays.

Maybe she thinks of me too.

Maybe she doesn’t.

But I still keep the seat beside me free.

Just in case.