It felt good to be doing something completely different to the regular slog of life. The week off really did wonders, and spending time with my mother only added to the experience, and was full of healing moments for both her and myself, repairing a relationship that had turned cold and formal over the past several years.

No more panic attacks, either. Obviously, there weren’t many events like a football game over the week, so there wasn’t a critical mass of people which I could feel, but not having an out of body experience was a welcome development. Still, even that sort of bliss had to end, and I had to return to London, where the work, life, and – hopefully – Aaron was. After exchanging goodbyes with mum, my dad generously gave me a lift to the train station.

“Finally alone with you. Did you get a chance to think over what happened during the game?” he said.

“Yeah, I did. It definitely had a lot to do with how they all felt the same thing after we scored,” I said.

“Interesting. Why do you think it stopped when we did?”

“I seem to be reacting to discord, and to chaos. Order doesn’t wrestle control from the conscious part of my brain,” I said. “Why? I don’t know. The doctors saw nothing on my EEG’s. They swore I’m hallucinating all of it, but it seems too… regular for it all to be hallucinations. Too predictable.”

“I see. Good luck,” he said as we pulled up to the train station. “You’ll need it.”

“Thanks, dad,” I said, and gave him a long hug, one that I don’t remember giving him ever since I was a little girl. “See you.”

Walking out of the car and towards the train, I couldn’t help but feel that there was the slightest hint of lie in the “see you.” I didn’t know when I would next be able to get paid leave, and I would certainly have completely different things on my mind over the course of the next few months.

Yes, finding Aaron was a priority, but so was work, and simultaneously not overextending myself to the point that I would have to get an unscheduled operation. The time between two operations never seemed like enough, and I didn’t want to get back on that slab any sooner than necessary. Settling into the train, I wanted to get my book out, but the constant whine of fans calmed me into deep sleep.

When I opened my eyes, the train was completely empty, and silent. Not even the fans that had provided such excellent background noise were to be heard, and I had to have a quick look around. The windows were typically fogged up and useless, meaning I would have to work with what was inside.

No vibrations, no shaking, no rocking. We weren’t moving. While I was trying to figure out where everyone was, the scrolling display over the middle of the interior caught my eye. Usually you’d check those to see what the next station was, but this one was scrolling with real text, punctuation and everything.

When my eyes focused enough to read the display, I realised that it read “Hey, Jordan. I miss you” over and over again.

“Aaron?” I said out loud, even though I didn’t feel my lips move.

The text on the display changed to read “Who else?”

“Where are you?” I said.

The text changed again. “Look behind”

Look behind I did, and to my great surprise, he was there. Exactly how he’d appeared in my dream, but dressed in a much tighter shirt than last time I’d seen him, revealing a body far stronger than his slender frame would suggest.

“Hey,” he said. Same voice again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I said.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said. “I’ve spent so long looking for you. I just knew you were real, and I had to find you.”

“You creeper,” I said with a smile.

“You too?” he said.

“Guilty as charged,” I said and walked towards him and fell in his arms. “Finally.”

He sighed, but kept to that as he enjoyed the hug as much as I did. Maybe even more.

“By the way, where the hell are we?” I said.

“Somewhere in the Midlands. Everything’s broken down, so everyone’s left the train. Everyone except you and me,” he said.

“And the crew?” I asked.

“Went out to stretch their legs while help arrives,” he said. “We have the whole train to ourselves.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” I said, and got on my toes to kiss him.

“Maybe,” he said and returned the kiss.

How was he so good at this? I swear he was reading my mind, responding to my each move in kind, and with him, I felt like we were meant to be one. I caressed his back, and moved my hands back to squeeze his…

“Young lady,” a booming voice said. “I don’t know what kind of dream you’re having, but next time you have it, don’t have it on the train or everyone will laugh at you. Again.”

“Huh?” I said, and Aaron suddenly disappeared, I felt a sudden kick in the back, and found an older woman sitting next to me. I didn’t want to know what kinds of noises I was making. “I’m terribly sorry.” Just a dream, then. Shame.

“Hrmph,” she mumbled. “I know we were all once young, but you really should learn to control yourself.”

“Won’t happen again,” I said. How Southern of me. Apologising for something that wasn’t my fault.

For the rest of the journey down, I tried my best to actually stay awake, lest I fall asleep again and have another one of those dreams. The book proved sufficient, and even though I was running out of pages, I paced myself, took breaks, and found unexpected entertainment in actually “listening” for people’s emotions.

When it wasn’t unexpected, and in small amounts, it was actually quite a pleasant sensation, knowing I could feel their existence. It just felt like another sense I could use, and use it well. For a moment, I even thought I could get around with my eyes closed, but I wasn’t about to try and make a mockery of myself again.

Feeling the cross-section of humanity was equal parts empowering and terrifying. To know which demons someone was battling every single moment wasn’t pleasant, but it was a cushion on which I could lean to make myself a better conversationist. But first I needed to unpack.

Coming back to my flat, in the same mess that I left it in, was another wholly unpleasant experience, but cleaning everything out was another welcome distraction from the ugly truth that I was about to embark on an impossible mission to find a man of dubious existence knowing nothing but his first name, and that I had to do it all in my spare time.

First day back at work, I seemed to be able to work harder than before. Everyone else around me being in the same mental state seemed to resonate with my brain, and it just carried me into a state of complete flow, the world around me disappearing as I disappeared back into numbers. Any sort of teamwork that had to be done was done even faster, as I knew to expect them. And then the day ended, and everyone broke out of their pattern.

It felt like a really strong kick in the head, and as my body tensed up, I did my best to keep control of myself. I wasn’t about to have a seizure at work. Most it’d do is get me fired.

“Jordan, are you okay?” my coworker, Claire, said.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just been a long day,” I said.

“Ha, that’s right. You want to grab a drink?” she said.

“No, I’m good, thanks. I’ve got things to do,” I said.

“What things? You’ve just been doing things all day!” she said.

“Just… things. Long story,” I said. She didn’t have to know.

“Have it your way,” she said.

I went home and ordered a whiteboard, to keep track of everything I knew on Aaron. If he was real, I needed him. If he wasn’t, well, I had to know. I needed closure, one way or the other.

Days turned into weeks, which turned into months. Christmas was utterly boring, given that I had to make my parents come down, having burned my leave in the post-op week. The birthday party my coworkers threw me meant nothing, and it was time I didn’t spend looking for Aaron. I forgot when I’d last gone out with anyone, and every day looked exactly the same.

Work, home, search. Work, home, search. And the search only led me down dead ends. I knew nothing about him – age, race, look, nothing. It was entirely possible that the look I’d dreamed up for him was just my reflection of an ideal man and nothing more. No method gave me anything better than a brute force attack at the phonebook, and there were too many Aarons just in London to do that.

I cared about everything else less and less, and my surroundings picked up on that, but listening to their emotions allowed me to play them and convince them that everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine. I was crying myself to sleep almost every night, and I was so close to giving up. And then, one Friday afternoon in April, my doorbell rang, and I stumbled out of bed, unkept and untidy, to open the door and find my father standing there.

“You didn’t pick your phone up,” he said. “For weeks.”

“Dad? Why are you here?”

“Because I miss you, and because I can tell that something’s obviously wrong with you,” he said and invited himself in. “Jordan? What is this?”

“Sorry about the mess,” I said. “Work’s busy.”

“Work?” he said, and looked around the terrible mess I’d made, before his eyes landed on the whiteboard, and “Aaron” written in capital letters on top of it. “Is he work?”

I looked down at my shoes, not knowing what to say. I’d lied to him, there was no way of getting around it.

“Come on. Let’s go to the pub,” he said. “It’s time I taught you a lesson.”