Jamie shrugged off his backpack, stuffed plump with clothing, food, utensils--a cumbersome but necessary burden--onto the platform. It was 6:45am, and in a few minutes a train would take him from Angers to Paris. There, he would catch a bus to Charles de Gaulle airport to wait for his flight to Tel Aviv. Jamie was going to see his brother.
The sleek, white train slid quietly into the station--a far cry from the hunkering metal slugs churtling along the tracks back in Ireland. Jamie heaved his backpack onto the train and looked over his shoulder. Juliette was there. After eluding him for nearly three weeks, she stood before him sleepy eyed, but awake. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "what did you expect?" Jamie returned her gesture with a tight-chinned face--it came naturally, and when he made it he realised it was a face his father would make before saying to him, "you did the best you could with what you had."
Jamie slid away with the train, leaving her and Angers behind him. He leaned his head against the seat and tried to sleep--rest was something he had ignored for many days. Little did he know how precious that nap was.
Things were about to get much, much worse.
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