From Texas to London

CHAPTER -1 A Dream Called London Emma Carter had always believed that dreams belonged to two worlds. Some dreams stayed inside your head. And some dreams somehow found a way into real life. For Emma, London had always been the second kind. She was a twenty-year-old writer from Texas who spent most of her time with three things: her laptop, a notebook full of unfinished stories, and an unhealthy amount of coffee. Her bedroom wall was covered with pictures of London. The red buses. Big Ben. The London Eye. The River Thames. Even the little underground signs of the London Underground. Whenever someone asked her why she loved London so much, Emma always gave the same answer. “Because I've never been there.” Her friends laughed at that answer. But Emma was serious. She had never visited London. Yet somehow, she felt as if she knew the city. She wrote about it constantly. In one of her stories, a girl arrived in London alone and met a mysterious boy on the Underground. Emma had written the scene several months ago. She never imagined that one day, she would be standing inside almost the exact same scene. Emma's plane landed at Heathrow on a cloudy afternoon. She stepped outside the airport with two suitcases, a backpack, and a notebook pressed tightly against her chest. She looked around. London. Actually London. She took a deep breath. “I did it.” Then she looked at her suitcase. One wheel was making a terrible noise. Creeeeak. Emma frowned. “Please don't embarrass me on my first day.” The suitcase answered with another loud creak. A man passing by looked at her strangely. Emma smiled politely. “It's been a long journey.” The man walked away. Emma whispered to herself, “Great. I've been in London for three minutes and I'm already talking to luggage.” Meanwhile, somewhere across the city, Liam Bennett was having a completely different kind of morning. Liam was twenty-two and lived in London. Unlike Emma, he had never dreamed about visiting London. He had simply grown up there. To him, the Underground wasn't romantic. It was crowded. It was noisy. And occasionally, someone would eat something on the train that made the entire carriage regret having a nose. Liam worked in publishing and spent most of his days surrounded by books and manuscripts. He loved stories. But unlike Emma, he wasn't very good at writing them. He once tried. His first attempt had been three pages long. Two pages were dialogue. The third page simply said: “Something dramatic happens here.” His sister still laughed about it. That morning, Liam grabbed his coat and headed toward the Underground. He was already late. “Perfect,” he muttered. “Exactly how I wanted my day to begin.” Emma finally reached the Underground station. She looked at the map. Then looked again. Then moved closer. Then moved farther away. “This cannot be a map,” she whispered. “This is a puzzle designed to destroy tourists.” She pulled out her phone. No signal. Of course. “London, you're testing me.” She hurried toward the platform just as the train arrived. The doors opened. Emma rushed inside. At the same moment, Liam stepped into the same carriage from the opposite side. Neither noticed the other. Until the train suddenly moved. Emma lost her balance. Her notebook slipped from her hand. She reached for it— but another hand caught it first. Emma looked up. A young man was holding her notebook. Liam looked at the cover. There was a tiny handwritten sentence on it: “Dreams don't always stay dreams.” He smiled. “Interesting title.” Emma quickly took the notebook. “It's not a title.” “Then what is it?” “My private thought.” “Fair enough.” She narrowed her eyes. “You shouldn't read people's private thoughts.” “I didn't read it. It was on the cover.” Emma looked down. She realized he was right. “Oh.” For a second, neither spoke. Then the train shook again. Emma grabbed the pole. Liam grabbed the same pole. They both stopped. Emma immediately moved her hand away. “Sorry.” “It's okay.” A tiny silence followed. Then Liam noticed the suitcase beside her. The wheel was still making that horrible noise. Creeeeak. He looked at it. Emma looked at him. “Don't say anything.” “I wasn't going to.” “You were thinking it.” “I was thinking your suitcase sounds like it's protesting against London.” Emma tried not to laugh. Failed. She covered her mouth. Liam smiled. “See? It wasn't that bad.” “What?” “The joke.” “I wasn't laughing at your joke.” “Of course not.” Emma shook her head. “You London people are very confident.” “And you Texas people are very easy to annoy.” Emma raised an eyebrow. “You know I'm from Texas?” He pointed toward the luggage tag. TEXAS, USA. “Oh.” Again. That embarrassing little silence. Liam laughed. Emma sighed. “I'm going to pretend none of this happened.” “Probably a good idea.” The train continued through the Underground. Neither of them knew that this strange meeting was only the beginning. And Emma definitely didn't know something even stranger. The conversation she was having right now was almost identical to a scene she had written months ago. A girl from Texas. A London Underground train. A lost notebook. And a boy who caught it before it hit the floor. Emma looked at Liam for a moment. Then at her notebook. Her smile slowly disappeared. She whispered, “This can't be…” Liam looked confused. “What?” Emma closed the notebook. “Nothing.” But inside her mind, one thought kept repeating: What if the dreams I write about aren't just dreams? And for the first time since arriving in London, Emma wondered whether her stories might know something about her future that she didn't. To be continued…