A flush crept up Jia’s neck. She righted the novel—some pretentious thing she’d bought at a station kiosk—and set it aside. “Maybe I like watching the world go backwards.”
Vixen smiled. It was a small, dangerous curve of the mouth. “The world doesn’t go backwards. Only we do. Trying to outrun a version of yourself you left in a different time zone?”
Jia turned from the window. For the first time in weeks, she looked another woman in the eyes without performing. Without choreographing her expression. “And what’s your story?” Vixen - Jia Lissa - Travelling Alone
The train compartment smelled of rust, stale coffee, and the particular loneliness of a border crossing at dusk. Jia Lissa pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching the industrial outskirts of the last city blur into skeletal trees. Outside, the map was ending. Inside, she was just beginning.
She didn’t answer with words. She let her hand rest on the seat between them, palm up, an offering. Vixen’s fingers intertwined with hers—cool, deliberate, asking for nothing more than the next station. A flush crept up Jia’s neck
Jia should have been offended. Instead, she felt seen in a way that terrified and thrilled her. She thought of the stage lights, the hollow roar of applause, the way her body belonged to everyone and no one. “Something like that,” she whispered.
“It’s the way you hold your book,” Vixen replied, nodding at the untouched paperback in Jia’s lap. “Upside down for the last three stops. You’re not reading. You’re hiding.” It was a small, dangerous curve of the mouth
And for the first time all journey, Jia Lissa wasn’t hiding. She was arriving.
