DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

6/15/16

Waking Up in a School Bus

The girl I share a locker with always walks on the bus in the morning with wet hair.  She sits next to me in the back and we both fall asleep and wake up to the music of the bus driver’s choice radio station.  The dirty windows filter the amount of sunlight that beam over us about thirty minutes before the bus pulls into a parking lot busy with life.  Her backpack is plastered with patches of her favorite bands, like Dave Matthews and Coldplay, the band we saw live in concert on the night that she broke her leg, trying to be a rebel and crowd surf with me over an overly excited group of British rock fanatics.  This morning she wears orange and white Converses and I wear navy Doc Martins and we switch shoes so that I can go to gym class first period.  She wants her Mom to call her out of fifth period gym, since the teacher was going to make her run and her leg had started to bother her again.  She pulls out her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and flips through the yellowing pages, saying that she admires Boo the most because he wasn’t afraid to stick up for someone in need during a time of crisis.  She sits up towards the window, on a brown leather seat that sweats with June heat, and I pull her hair back in a ponytail with a plaid scrunchie that she takes off of her wrist and hands to me.  She pulls a s’mores pop tart out of a sandwich baggie and asks if I want one.  I say no, I had already eaten.  The moments before the bus driver turns off the radio and opens the doors she takes my copy of Franny and Zooey from my bag and tells me that the best part is at the end, kind of like right now, kind of like us.

 

*This is a portrait of a girl I used to know in high school.  We were friends and used to take the bus to and from school together.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.