Page 3 of Two Kinds of Stranger

A single word.

Hello.

No response.

She waited for a half hour. Had another glass of Chardonnay, then called him.

He didn’t answer.

She called him again.

He didn’t pick up.

Over the course of consuming the rest of the bottle, she had called him another six times.

It hadn’t helped that James was now one of the most hated figures on social media. Elly’s TikTok had seen to that. He’d deleted his Instagram along with the rest of his social media. It didn’t stop the hate. Tens of thousands of people pouring abuse onto his name, contacting his friends, his family, his employers. In the two weeks since that live video outing James and Harriet, they had both suffered. Harriet got dropped by her modelling agency and James was fired for bringing his firm into disrepute.

Elly didn’t ask for any of that to happen. She knew it could. And she didn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop it.

None of it helped Elly feel better. Revenge was not sweet. It tasted bitter. She still loved him. Now she had to bear the guilt of ruining two lives as well as managing the pain in her own.

Elly took off her brown leather glove, wiped at the tear on her cheek as she turned the corner for the downtown train and tapped her phone on the scanner as she went through the barrier.

A single set of stairs led down to the platform. It was midday. Not too many commuters around, but New York is never quiet. There are always people.

A man stood at the top of the stairs. He had a cast on his left leg, from below the knee to the top of his foot, and held a crutch in each arm. Even though it was cold, he wore sweatpants with one leg cut away because of the cast, a sweater and a red jacket. He had a thin face, but he wasn’t struggling to hold his weight on those crutches. Even from a distance, Elly could see he had powerful arms and shoulders. He reminded her of boys she knew on the swim team or gymnastics team in college.

But this was no college boy.

He was older. Ten, maybe fifteen years older than Elly. Yet he didn’t look like most forty-somethings. Not to Elly. He looked. . .well, Elly thought he looked just great. He wore a blue baseball hat. He leaned down, still holding the crutch with his right hand, and tried to grab something.

There was a yellow hard-shell luggage case beside him, on rollers. He moved forward a little, gripping the handle and the crutch as he shuffled along, but now he had a new problem. He was trying to get down the stairs, but couldn’t quite figure out how to carry the case and use the crutches to support his weight on the descent. A woman in a long black coat pushed past him, and he fell against the rail. She hollered an apology as she skipped down the steps. He simply smiled. Didn’t show any anger or irritation, just a polite wave of acknowledgement.

After the last two weeks of carnage, Elly found herself stepping toward the man and saying, ‘Do you need some help with your case?’

Perhaps because she wanted to help. Perhaps because she missed the warm feeling that came after she had completed one of her daily random acts of kindness. Perhaps because the guy looked quite pathetic and she felt sorry for him.

At first, he was surprised. His mouth opened and moved, but no words and no sound came out. At this point, she noticed a scar on his chin, just below his lower lip. Pale and wide. An old wound. Then he smiled and said gratefully, ‘Thank you, I managed this far holding it with the crutch and dragging it alongside me, but that doesn’t work with stairs. This is so kind.’

‘No problem,’ said Elly, reaching down. She pressed the button on the extendable handle at the top of the case, pushed it down, took the plastic handle, and picked it up. It wasn’t too heavy, the type of case she liked to use for carry-on baggage when she flew.

A thought occurred to her that two weeks ago, before that viral video, Elly would have asked the man if it was okay for her to take a video for her socials. This would’ve been a good one for her daily random acts of kindness. But not now. Elly didn’t know if she would ever post online again.

She waited a moment until the man got both crutches secure on his arms, lowered them to the first step and then hopped down. He’d bent the broken leg, using it to help his balance as the rubber feet on the crutches found the next step. The crutches clicked as they took his weight, and he said, ‘People have been walking past me for the last five minutes. I didn’t know how I was going to get down to the platform. People in this city are so busy they. . .’

SNAP!

The plastic handle broke off the case.

Not only did it stop the man speaking, but time itself seemed to stop for Elly. She froze. So did the man. They didn’t try to grabthe case – no point. Instinctively, Elly’s hand reached for her mouth, and she drew in a fierce gasp.

They watched as it fell, almost in slow motion.

The case hit the steps and bounced into the air, somersaulting and then hitting them again, sending it tumbling down, down, down onto the platform with a dullthunk, and then the case burst open, charging cables, a laptop, underwear, socks–everything spilled out onto the platform.

‘Oh my God, oh my God,I’msoooosorry,’ said Elly over and over again, like a breathless mantra, as she hustled down the steps.

‘It’s okay. It was an accident,’ said the man, as he slowly and carefully made his way down.