Dora recognized him by the way he folded his ticket between his fingers. Nermin sat on the train opposite an older man with a canvas bag. She had not seen him since graduation. Back then, he had been the loudest person in their class and the only one who said he would own a company by thirty.

Now they were both past forty. Dora ran a small marketing agency, and she had heard only fragments about Nermin: construction, large contracts, a lovely apartment. She approached him with a smile. He stood too quickly, struck his knee against the table, and told her she looked exactly the same. It was a polite lie she decided to accept.

The older man introduced himself as Goran. When Dora asked whether they were traveling together on business, he answered before Nermin could. He said Nermin was taking him home because he had just closed his company and did not feel up to traveling alone. He spoke calmly, as though admitting he had lost a suitcase.

Dora looked at Nermin with new respect. He had always seemed like someone who avoided other people's problems. Now he was clearly supporting a friend. She sat down and began talking about the reunion. Nermin listened, said little, and never corrected Goran's story.

At the next station, Goran stepped off to buy water. His phone remained on the table and rang. The name of a law firm appeared on the screen, followed immediately by a message Dora could not avoid seeing: the papers for Nermin's bankruptcy were ready.

Nermin turned the phone over. "I'm the one going home," he said. There was no defensiveness in his voice. The apartment was no longer his. His company had failed. Goran, a family friend, had come to collect him because for three weeks he had spoken to no one but his lawyer.

For a while, Dora looked at her own ticket. Then she told him how her agency had fallen behind on wages the previous winter, and how she had posted photographs of a successful celebration the day after selling off the office furniture. Nermin looked up. She was offering neither a job nor empty assurances that everything would be fine. They simply no longer seemed to inhabit different kinds of lives.

When Goran returned, Dora thanked him for the water. As they got off, she gave Nermin her number and told him to call if he wanted to take a walk before the reunion. Goran went ahead with his bag. Nermin called after him to slow down. This time, he was carrying his own suitcase.