Her phone jangles in her pocket and she fishes it out, pulling free an assortment of tissues and old bus tickets as she does so. She sits among the detritus of her everyday life and opens a text from the Boyfriend.
"Hi C, sorry 2 do this, have been thinkin a lot lately & i don't think this is workin 4 either of us. Probs best u don't come 2 york".
Celine stares at the screen. Moments crawl by before her fingers shake themselves free of their stupor.
"But I'm already waiting for the train." She presses send.
"Sorry C. Really am. Just don't think we're rite 4 each other. Hope to stay friends, ur a gr8 girl."
Celine peers at the phone through a film of salt water. Her train pulls into the station but she doesn't see it. She wipes away the tears and re-reads the texts, hoping she made a mistake, or that he was joking. She starts to type four or five different replies, each time deleting the message in case another comes in explaining it all.
A station guard comes over after half an hour. He asks her if she needs help, and leads her out of the station. He looks at her kindly, like a grandfather indulging a child with a scabby knee. It only occurs to her later that she is probably not the first dumpee he has encountered at work. He even buys her a cup of coffee after a hatchet-faced woman in the station office refuses to refund her now-useless train ticket.
Her friends rally around, and try to take her mind off it. They do a reasonable job, and after a few months, Celine deletes the texts from her phone. She deletes all of his texts, both good and bad. She cannot stand to be reminded of the wonderful things he said before he became so cruel. She gets a new haircut and uploads the photo to Facebook. The Now-Ex-Boyfriend 'likes' it almost immediately, but she un-friends him as quickly, and clears out her cache of photographs. He ceases to exist in her life, both online and off. A nasty streak, buried deep within Celine, hopes that she has erased him from existence altogether. She never hears from him again - it could be true.
Two days later, Celine takes all of the feelings she ever had about him and packs them into a cardboard box. She writes 'Rainy Day' on the front in black marker, and stores it at the back of a closet. She doesn't know when, or if, she'll ever need them again. She pushes other boxes, containing clothes or books, in front of them, and vows to get on with her life.
It doesn't take long for the box to start rattling. Something inside it wants to break out.
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