He stood on the train platform. As an observer of human nature, he always had his canvas, the weather-beaten Canon, readily accessible. His eyes glanced around the platform as businessmen busily hurried to their trains. A little girl was drawn to the newspaper stand with its wares of chocolates laid out, but her mother quickly jerked his hand as the Orange train approached.

He loaded his camera with Tri-X. The drabness of wintertime could only be ameliorated with the high contrast of black and white film. As he closed the film housing, his eyes caught a figure...

Could it be?

It was.

He darted through the horde of people getting on the Orange train and grabbed her shoulder to spin her around. Her face, initially filled with anger at being harassed, soon softened when the distant memories of her past came flooding back. She stuttered.

"You..."

He didn't know how to feel. Her face, although beautiful, wasn't what brought back the youthful joys of his past. Seeing her face brought back a familiarity that reminded him of the memories of her. Her laughter of jokes long forgotten echoed in his mind. But, as had always happened in his mind, her laughter were quickly silenced with the guillotine of pain. The question that had haunted the past fifteen years bubbled furiously from his lips.

"How could you leave me? After everything we had gone through - just to leave me at the altar like that? And after everything we shared about our future? You know that everyone was worried sick about you? You just disappeared. No contact with anybody. You don't think your father and mother were dying to know what had happened to you? We issued a missing persons report."

He stared at her eyes for some recognition and acknowledgement. She glanced away, ashamed. He would get no answers.

"You know, and to not even call me up to talk to me in person? How dare you get your sister to tell me you had left town? You know, if that's what you really wanted to do, I would have supported you!"

He realized his voice had slowly been in a crescendo. What had started off as questions of despair quickly turned into those of anger. He had made a scene, and curious passerbys, sensing drama, had started listening in. His voice softened.

He darted a look towards her. She obliged, and they walked down the platform, away from the busy crowd.

"I'm sorry." The words, although not enough to take away the pain of the past for him, were enough to placate his raging soul.

"What are you doing here?" Although trying to stay firm, her voice wavered from the shock of the moment.

He was never one to answer questions directly, but not for her, especially. He owed her nothing. The burden of pain was overwhelming.

"You know, after you left, I wasn't too good. My dad helped me by getting a job in his shop scraping the paint off of hardwood floors. He said it was to get my mind off of you. It I was hoping you would come back. I've always still loved you. I never got that fresh start that my dad wanted me to get for years, until him and mom passed away in the tragic accident..."

His voice trailed off. What could she say? She tried to stare down at the gravel by the train tracks, hoping to find the strength to say something meaningful. All her years of training, and she couldn't deliver a line at the most important time in her life. He continued, trying to be more light-hearted.

"You know, I saw you late night on Conan O'Brien's show. And you looked so goddamn happy. I always loved the way you laugh, and to hear it again..."

His voice broke off. He didn't want to break down in front of her, and he sensed his voice wavering. She remained silent as well, and although to the passerby, it would seem like they were in a void of silence, there was much running through both of their minds.

"But you know," he continued, "I think that's when I started to get better. I saw you really happy, and you know all I ever wanted for you was for you to be happy. Your happiness was my happiness. And that's when I decided I had to quit moping around and start living my life again. But I couldn't love anybody else... you were just too goddamn beautiful to me. How can I ever settle for less?"

In her eyes, he saw a flicker of regret.

"I followed your career, you know. I'm sure you know. Why wouldn't you know? You're famous. Everybody knows what you're doing. You remember what you said about Polaris the night before we were supposed to get married?"

For a moment, her mind was racing back to the past she had tried to forget.

"We said that if we were ever to be separated, we would both look up to Polaris and know that it was shining on both of us for all eternity. That we should follow the path towards Polaris... that way we'd both always be going in the same direction in our lives."

Her eyes started welling up. He stopped. He didn't want to cause her more pain. He swallowed his pride and his inquisitive demeanor softened... he hated making her feel this way.

"Yeah, so anyways, I traveled around the world as a photographer. My dad saw some of my pictures after you left in the darkroom and was impressed with them. In his will, he left me some money he had saved up, telling me I should try my hand at photography as a profession instead of being stuck in his world. I only found out years later that when my dad was young, he had wanted to pursue photography, but then mom got pregnant with me..." His voice trailed off once again. Realizing he was rambling, he quickly got back on topic. "I've been freelancing ever since, trying to capture the beauty and pain of human nature around the world. I won an award, you know. I don't know if you've seen my piece about ..."

For the first time, she spoke.

"I saw those. They were beautiful. The pain of the situation ..."

"... don't think for a moment that those pictures would have come out the same if I hadn't felt the pain of being abandoned, too."

His response had been inadvertently harsh. The passerbys glanced at them once again. His harshness stung her pride. He kicked himself for it. He couldn't help but to strike out in anger. He looked away for a moment, and once again they were silent.

"What I meant to say is ... I spent the world trying to find something that would bring me the joy you did. Something as fucking beautiful. I wanted to take one picture that I could look back when I was old ... and know the world was beautiful. Because you fucking left me, and you weren't that for me anymore. So I tried to escape to the world of capturing human emotions permanently. Just one fucking picture. But I never got that. I've been searching the whole world. All I got was pictures of the pain and the suffering..."

His voice trailed off as he was reminded that the world was a broken place, and that he wasn't the only one who had felt the betrayal.

She spoke.

"I know I've made mistakes. I wish I could make the wrongs right. I just ... at the time... felt like being with you would never be that great. It's like I just couldn't settle on being partially happy. You know the hardest thing I had to do was risk something that was making me ninety percent happy ... for something that would make me a hundred percent happy."

"So are you completely happy?"

The question was rhetorical, and she knew it. She ignored his question and continued.

"You were always talking about working for your dad and taking over his business. And what was I supposed to be? The happy wife? I wanted more from life. You knew this. And honestly, although you said you would have supported me, I don't think you would have understood. How could you live with me cavorting with the hottest men in the world while you fixed up houses? But..."

Her voice trailed off for a moment while she grasped to find the words.

"But, I was young. And stupid. And I realized this years later. I wanted to call you up so many times. I almost did. I wanted to tell you everything that had happened in my life and ... I wanted to share the joys of my life with you. Just like old times, when you helped me become student president...but... I just ... couldn't. My pride... and whenI finally got the courage to call you, nobody knew where you had gone after your parents had died."

His eyes strayed to the diamond ring on her finger. She quickly covered the ring with her hand.

"That... I just ... it's been so long... and I found someone. In the business. After I tried to find you...Our wedding is next June. I found someone who understand what it's like to live this life. It's a hard life... Look, I'm not ashamed of you, if I hadn't found him and you had found me earlier..."

He was speechless. She was stabbing his soul with a million swords all over again. A train rumbled into the station.

"Look, I got to go... this is my train. I just wish... can you call me sometime, please? Jimmy..."

"I go by James now."

"James... please call me. Look, here's my number." She quickly jotted down her number and handed it to him. Still feeling frozen, he simply accepted the number without question.

She got on the train. His eyes were still staring straight ahead where her ring had been. She knocked on the window to get his attention. Broken from his daze, he glanced up at her and offered a smile. A smile broke out on her face and she waved back at him.

As the train rumbled off, his smile vanished from his face. He crumpled up the phone number and hurled it with all his anger across the train platform. With the throw, all his pain, all the memories of her, all his hope blazed across the station and landed on the gravel of the train tracks. Satisfied, he walked away from the platform and decided to continue his search for beauty. He would get his one shot.