Buses. (A Christian Novelli Fan Fiction)

Chapter 3

I storm onto the bus with tears beginning to form in the corners of my eyes. I don't even look to see if the guy I usually sit beside is there, but when I settle down on a pair of empty seats near the back, I see him with his head turned in my direction. I look away from him and rest my head against the dirty back of the seat in front of me. With my face buried in my hands, I cry quietly. 

A few minutes into my tears, someone cautiously sits beside me. Oh. My. God. Is it the guy? If it is, I might cry even more. But that can't happen. No one, especially a cute guy like him, would sit beside a crying girl. Still, I have that hope that it's him. I slowly pull my hands away from my face and turn to look at the blurry figure of the guy. Yes, the guy. He smiles lightly at me.

"It's okay," he whispers. That causes me to begin crying all over again. In the middle of my crying, he begins to awkwardly pat my shoulder in an effort to try and calm me down. Surprisingly, it helps. 

I wipe the tears off of my soggy cheek and scrub at my eyes with the sleeves of my sweater. When I glance over at him, he's staring at me. I flash him a sad smile, sniffle, then lean back in my seat. 

"Where are you headed?" he asks after a few seconds of silence. I shrug.

"I just came on the bus to get away from my-- from someone." He nods and pats his hair. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, then opens it again. It takes a moment for him to say something. 

"Do you want to go somewhere?" A few seconds later, he adds, " With me?" I sniffle again and wipe at my nose. 

Do I really want to go somewhere with him? I barely know him. I know he sits beside me most of the time. I know he was nice enough to come over and try to comfort me while I'm crying. That is the absolute nicest thing anyone has ever done to me. It also makes me happy that a cute guy with pretty eyes and a nice smile did that to me. 

"Where?" I ask. He looks down at his jeans. 

"Um... a park?" I mess with my hair for a second, then I smile.

"Sure." 

~

"What's your name?" he asks as we sip hot chocolates on a park bench. It has never occured to me that even after we rode the bus all the way to a park in dowtown Seattle together, after he refused to let me pay for my own hot chocolate, we still didn't know each other's names.

"Hale." 

"Oh, that's cool. I've never heard that name before." 

"Yeah, my dad wanted to name me something different. What's your name?" I ask. 

"Christian." 

"Hi, Christian." He chuckles and pats his hair again. 

"Hello, Hale." We sit quietly for a few minutes, just drinking decent hot chocolate out of to-go cups. He doesn't ask why I was crying earlier, which is a good thing. I want to forget about it. I want to forget about everything for a while. 

We stand up to walk around the small pond and stare at the ducks. He points one out that has a tuft of hair on his head that resembles and afro and we laugh at the duck. It seems to have heard us, because it turns and begins waddling towards us. Christian hurries me along as the duck gets dangerously close to our legs. 

He takes a step off of the path, shrugs out of his backpack, and places it on top of a wooden and old picnic table.

"I come here when I'm feeling sad," he says while unzipping his backpack. He pulls out a baggy with two pieces of bread inside of it. He opens it, hands me a slice of bread, then keeps the other for himself.

"And I always bring food for the ducks so they don't feel sad, too." I follow him to the edge of the pond where the ducks are resting. They move away from our soft footsteps, then return when we hold out our bread to them. I'm too scared to let them eat off of my hands, so I place it on the ground in front of me and watch them peck at the small chunks of bread. 

"You're sad?" I ask. I look over at him just in time to see him shrug. 

"It's okay." I stare down at our feet as we walk away from the ducks and back onto the concrete path. 

"Do you want to hear a joke?" I ask. 

"Sure," he replies. 

"Are you a beaver? Because dam." He looks straight ahead for a second, then a wide grin spreads across his face and he begins to laugh. He doesn't stop laughing for about a minute. We eventually have to stop at a tree, where he rests his head against the trunk and just laughs. 

"It's not that funny," I say with a giggle. 

"Oh, gosh. I've heard that joke before but it's even funnier when someone says it out loud." We share a laugh, then we continue on the path. 

~

Trees begin to pop up until eventually, we find ourselves in a forest. I stare up at the tall trees and down at the squirrels scurrying between the trees. 

"Is it creepy that we're in a forest?" he asks. 

"Not that much." 

"Oh, okay. Just making sure." We walk in silence through the forest, where the sun can barely reach us through the canopy of the trees' leaves. Suddenly, my phone begins ringing. We stop immediately as I dig through my pockets in search for my stupid phone. Only one person calls me, so I already know who it is before I check to see. 

"What?" 

"Don't 'what' me, Hale. I need you to do something for me." 

"No." It comes out of my mouth more quickly than I would have liked. My mom is silent on the other end. 

"What?" And then it happens again; I say something before I can comprehend what I'm saying.

"Don't 'what' me." Once again, my mom is silent. Christian is awkwardly standing a couple of feet away, staring at the forest. 

"Get. Home." Then she hangs up. I feel like throwing my phone into the forest where it can't ever be found. But I know that my mom will eventually have to make me go look for my phone so she can call me and order me around some more.

"I have to go home," I say. 

"Oh. Okay. We can go back." With an aggrivated and quiet sigh, we embark on our journey back to the bus stop, where we wait for ten minutes for the bus to arrive, then we ride in silence to my bus stop, where we say our goodbyes and I have to step off of the bus and go to my house. I'd much rather stay on the bus and go wherever it leads, with Christian sitting beside me. But I can't because of my lazy mom. And that's the way it'll always be. 

~ side note ~

Hey guys! Thank you so much for commenting! I never thought anyone would actually comment but people did so thank you guys so much n_n haha this chapter wasn't as fun, but you know, I guess it wasn't supposed to be very fun. I dunno. Just wanted to say thank you for the votes and for the comments. You guys are awesome haha. Have a nice day!