The Bus Stop

13: Always

  "You missed the turn off for our street," I told my best friend, staring lazily ahead in the passenger seat.

  "I know," he replied.

  My attention moved over towards Max, a frown plastered across my face as I studied him. Same blue eyes as usual, same brown hair, same veiny arms, same tall figure, same everything. Max Elliot was sat in the drivers seat of his mom's car and he was the just the same as every other day.  Except at the same time, he was completely and utterly different.

  I frowned once again, "well shouldn't you turn the car around? I thought we were going home."

  Max took a brief glance over at me and it was then that I noticed the oddity to his appearance. There was a glowing glint of mischief in his azure colored eyes and the corner of his lips quirked up into a smirk. The boy snapped his eyes back onto the road and smiled, "we're not going home."

  I studied him once again, narrowing my eyes at him as if the action would give me the information I needed to inform myself on what was going on. It was Monday afternoon—the first official hour of freedom in our winter break, and Max was up to something. "Wait," I said, my eyes widening at the thought, "you're going to kill me aren't you?"

The boy shot me an amused smile and he went to open his mouth to say something but I found myself rambling, again.  "Look, if this about your Harry Potter book you leant me in eighth grade, I can give it back to you.  I know how much you love that book so I wanted to read it for you but the truth is, I'm a slow reader and I know it's been like, what, four and half years? Trust—"

"Clara."

"—me I'm working on it.  I'm up to page one hundred and ninety-one and I can probably finish it by the next year, I just—"

"Clara."

"—need more time.  I swear I can get it back, just don't murder me because not only is that bad for me, it's bad for you.  Did you know that Pine Cove has a very small tolerance for murderers?  It's kind of like that episode of The Simpso-"

"Clara!"

I blinked, "yeah?"

"I'm not going to kill you, we're just going to a party."  Max took a brief glance off the road ahead, his eyes searching mine for some sense of something I was still oblivious to. He looked so focused, so determined and so, irrevocably innocent. It was in this moment that I contemplated whether or not he felt any kind of emotion towards me, or if I was just the girl next door he called his best friend.

I let out a sigh of relief, "oh thank god."  The boy snapped his eyes back onto the road and I let my body relax. Deep down I knew too well that Max Elliot would never hurt me—let alone kill me—but years of watching Criminal Minds and NCIS had really started to alert my inner detective. In other words, I was basically the next Garcia.

Inhaling deeply, I took the temporal silence as an option to peer out of the car window. Unlike most of our bus rides together, the vehicle we were placed in was travelling at what one would call an 'average speed.' The trees that stood along the sidewalk blurred as we travelled past them, specks of green and gold occupying my eyesight. We were travelling along what I had remembered was the west side of town—the opposite direction to where we lived. As if suddenly realizing the meaning of Max's words, I gasped. "Did you say we were going to a party? As in a place where people get wasted and high just because they think they're appealing?"

My best friend chuckled, "if that's how you want to define it."

I narrowed my eyes at the side of his face, "I'm not going with you."