Finding Answers

Day Dreaming

Tony

Some kid threw a fry at me.

There it stuck, in my conditioned, shampooed hair, greasing it up with hell knows what chemicals it was made with.

There was twenty of them, younger than me, bunch of freshman looking to be the stars of attention. Too much hairspray and unwashed clothes drifted up my disgusted nose. Even with earphones on, Jessica's nasally laugh could be heard throughout the entire bus of stinkin' animals, and David's "chick-magnet" cologne couldn't be ignored even if you held your breath.

"Eh!" Dante ran his fingers through my hair and plucked out the fry, tossing it back at someone up in front of the bus, "Aprenda a tirar!"

When watching where the food landed, my eyes met a particular shade of blue staring right back at me.

Oh god I feel sick.

"Hey, hey!" Dante hurriedly started pulling the things out of my bag. Before he could go on to take out my science book, I snatched his wrist.

"What are you doing?"

His eyes bulged out of his head, "What am I--" he tossed his hands in the air, "What do you think I'm doing? Man, you're either gonna shit some massive bricks or throw up a morning's breakfast! You don't look too good..."

Slowly, I started tossing my things back in the bag, "I didn't eat breakfast."

It stayed quiet. Somehow, in a 14 ton bus with about 38 loud, cocky passengers, it stayed quiet.

"Hey, what's up?"

The bus slowed down at a yellow light, showing me that outside in the early morning darkness, there was a bird hanging out on a building.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't pretend that I don't know."

What wouldn't you know? Dante has a variety of skills of always knowing.

"Don't know what?"

We haven't known each other as long as I've known Jake. We were both tired eye newbies trying to make it at soccer practice without taking a nap in the middle of the field. When you look past the gel-drowned hair and ability to understand everyone's little secrets, then he's a pretty cool guy.

He laughed, "Are you serious?" The guy didn't see a smile spread on my face, so he assumed that I was, in fact, being freaking serious.

Lowering both of our heads, he began to whisper so that the sleeping kid in front of us and the one with headphones glued to her ears in the back wouldn't hear.

"Everyday, Blue-eyes waits patiently at the corner stop sign, and everyday you come along and you guys walk to wherever the hell you guys go."

Before I could say anything, Dante slapped his hand over my mouth.

"Na na na, I'm not finished."

Angrily, I ripped it off, but he kept going.

"This little routine has been happening for as long as I can remember. All that changed..." he gently rubbed at his right temple, "two and a half weeks ago! Blue-eyes waits there, but this time, impatiently. And for some reason...you never show. Sooooooo..."

"Stalker much? You have a lot of time on your hands, don't you?" despite my playful tone, my expression couldn't match it.

Thinking about Jake caused my heart to melt, and not in a good way. After I left his house, I ran all the way home trying to breathe and hold in my breath all at the same time. Once I got home, I was surprised that I didn't cry. There I sat, laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I wasn't bawling my eyes out.