Melbourne Train Girl has been thinking about several boys. She likes to watch the suburbs go past from the train window while daydreaming. She has been thinking about them just enough to be distracted from what she should really be doing.

There is the foreign boy she kissed last night. Who told her he wanted to take her home in a little box when he left Melbourne in two months, so that when he arrived he could open the box and she would appear. Who told her she was charming and surprising and smart and stylish. He was maybe too old for her, and maybe a bad idea. Of that second point she couldn't be sure. They exchanged numbers and are going to have dinner one night this week.

There is the work friend of a friend, and he quite possibly likes her. Her friends all think they should hook up. He is friendly and lovely and a little bit shorter than Melbourne Train Girl. She likes the t-shirts he wears, and he seems like the kind of boy who could be handy around her house. She knows her mother would love him. Like the foreign boy, he too is maybe a little bit old for her. He is also a friend of a friend. Melbourne Train Girl has a policy about going out with friends and with friends of friends. That policy is never.

There is her ex boyfriend. Exactly twelve days ago was their one year breakup anniversary. She remembers how he would lie next to her and ask her what she was thinking.
"Nothing," she would reply as he tried to play with her nipples, and she would turn over to lie on her stomach, her face to the wall. She really meant "nothing except that I don't think I like you anymore, I feel sick when you touch me, and I wish you would see what a terrible person I am and break up with me". She was always too cowardly to make those moves by herself. They were together for almost three and a half years - which was almost two years longer than it really should have been.

There is the boy who she met at the market two Wednesdays ago. He had a little lisp and was cute and friendly. She thinks he may have liked her - he sent her an email last Thursday. That email was a business email, although she likes to think it was really an excuse to contact her. He did use a smiley face in the email. She replied, but he never replied back. She is starting to think it was just a business email after all.

Then there is the one boy who occupies most of her daydreams. She has known him for ten years, been friends with him for seven years, and been almost best friends with him for six months. She calls him her husband and he calls her his wife. His mother doesn't like her very much, but she doesn't mind. Her mother loves him, but he is scared of her. Melbourne Train Girl can think of nothing better than marrying him and living in a house together. This is really because she doesn't want to share him with anyone else, which she knows is selfish. She imagines sharing toast together on Wednesday nights when they both can't sleep, and talking about Nina Simone while they cook dinner.

He is gay.

Melbourne Train Girl is the only one who knows.