The Edge of No Tomorrow

7 | Larimar

I shake the raindrops from my hair as I climb onto the bus. Its only passengers today are Avanna and her mother.

Taking my seat next to them, I look back through the window at Cyrus. Leave while you still can. The words echo in my head. As the bus roars, my sense of urgency pales.

The city streets are desolate as it blurs in my vision. A larimar blue hatchback car litters the roadside, its windows smashed in, and the stickers—a dog with scruffy fur, a butterfly etched with wings like veins—peeling off.

"Where are you headed?" I ask, although it's more like a whisper. It's none of my business, I know. But some part of me—something deep inside of me—has started to see this nameless woman everywhere and nowhere, all at once. I can't seem to escape from her. I can't stop seeing her, in the reflection of the mirror, in the busted storefront windows, in the dusty lobby of my apartment. Something within me needs to know. Needs to make her less faceless, nameless, lifeless.

"Home," Avanna's mother replies, her voice ringing through the bus. It seems so vast with nobody to fill it.

"Oh." I falter. I'm running out of time.

Her eyes cast to the floor. "What's your name?"

"Nina." My voice almost disappears.

"Thank you for talking to me, Nina. I'm Adeline."

A pause.

A deep breath.

"Oh, and thank you for the food. It's been hard to find anything of substance lately," she continues, even softer.

I have five stops before she gets off; I know. "You're welcome," I say. Nothing else seems to fit.

I crumple my hand against the ticket for the boat. "Adeline?"

She faces me. The bus bounces over a hole in the road, sending Avanna into the air. Her eyes widen with a jolt of surprise, and Adeline secures her arms around her protectively. My words get swallowed with a bitter aftertaste.

I remove the ticket from my pocket. It's damp with rainwater and the smudge of fingerprints muddying the time and date stamped on it. I unclench my teeth and say, "If you take this bus to the end of the line, you'll reach the boat."

Adeline stares, and her grip on her daughter tightens. "Why..."

"Just take it." I slip the money from my pocket and extend it towards her. "There should be enough for both of you. I'm sure of it."

The fourth stop arrives. The bus coasts past it.

"I can't take this, Nina."

"Somebody has to. It would be a waste if I kept it."

The crackle of thunder on the horizon. "You're not leaving?"

Avanna tugs against her mother's sleeve and motions for her to come. Her head cranes between the window—their stop rapidly approaching—and Adeline's face.

In a measured tone, she tells Avanna to be calm. "Just a minute, please," she says and looks at the ticket again, again. Again. "I have nothing to give you for it. I could never get enough money to afford to leave," she tells me.

"I'm not asking for that."

She blinks. Her palm closes over it. "The last stop takes me where? I've never..."

"It's close enough. You'll see it when you get there."

"And what about you?" she asks.

My finger rests against the signal to tell the bus to stop. I press it as rain pelts the windows and waning light hits the thoroughfare.

"I'm going home."

○

I enter my apartment building through the side door. Water drips from my clothes.

My eyes connect with the sign hanging on the wall.

You are here, it reminds me.

I am here and not elsewhere. I belong here and not elsewhere. I am still here, with my empty pockets. I don't feel a thing.

As I trudge past, I rip the sheet off the wall and it crumbles—like Kayden's granola bar, like a pane of glass smashed in, like a fleeting dream never caught.

The words sear into my palms. I toss the paper underneath the stairwell.

I am an insignificant smudge; I know. Useless—seen only in glimpses by those passengers on the bus that don't remember the trace of me like I don't remember them.

This is it. This is what I deserve.

To be left behind.