pain doesn't need words

I never saw her face.

I had my head bent over my book, reading away the tram ride home. I'd caught a glimpse of her boyfriend, lounging in the stairwell while he waited for the tram to pull up to their stop, but of her I saw only her back before turning back to my book.

Then the tram pulled to a halt, and the doors opened with their customary squeak and swoosh of rubber over wet treads. And hard on the heels of that a new sound, an unfamiliar one: a scrape and crump and thump in quick succession,