jalex-I never lit a match, with intent to start a fire.

a shred of hope

The smell of rotten food and cheap cleaning products flooded the air. The overly bright sun rays cascadeing through the blurry window to his right. The seat felt worn out, and lumpy under Jack's bottom. Nothing more comfortable than his bed though for sure he thought.

Jack rested his head in his hands leaning slightly over the seat front of him. Headphones in, playing Adams song, by blink 182.

And as the song slowly came to it's mere end, Jack shut his eyes, face now hanging on the seat ahead, hands on his lap and briefly sung out the last line of the song with true emotion and defInItIon wIth each word.

"I can't wait til I get home to pass the time in my room alone."

...

As tIme progressed, the bus came to Its fInal stop. He sat back listening to his music and ignoring the hard stumps of footsteps from the students just walking on. "God what the Fuck is the rush? Why do they have to run up stomping with each step forward?" he complained to himself.

After a while of zero movement from the bus, He looked up wondering what the problem was, when he heard other teens whispering. From hushed snIckers of "Ooo he's cute", "ooh new guy" and catcalls to harsh shootings of "what a faggot" and "another fuckIng emo.". Everyone was looking out towards the right sided windows of the school bus.

Looking out hIs window, Jack noticed what the huge commotion was. A brown-haired boy dressed in tight black skinny jeans, and a long whIte green day shirt slightly running towards the bus, wailing his arms over his beet red face, attempting to capture the bus driver's attention. Woah this guy was insanely cute. Hot even. Jack admitted.

"Sir, Mr. bus driver dude!!, There's someone still catching up!" Jack shouted towards the front of the bus.

"oh Fuck." he grumbled in response abruptly stopping the bus from moving any further.

.....

Walking on to the bus aisle, Alex felt a sudden rush of self-consious creep up, as he noticed all eyes were on him. His palms were slowly sweating up, he felt himself start to shake on the inside as everyone continued to watch.

He looked around, carefully avoiding all possIble eye contact in hope to find an empty seat.

Time was slowing down for Alex. Eyes puffing up, knees becoming weaker and weaker with each step. He scolded himself under his breath, "fucking over reacting damn it" . "youll fInd a seat, calm the fuck down, it's not a big deal" he repeated.

Making his way to the back he glanced around, and watched as all the seats were taken. And all the ones that were taken by a single person had pushed their bookbag forwards to take up the remainder of the seat.

Almost as if on cue, before Alex lost his last shred of hope in finding a seat, he locked hIs eyes with a black messy-haired boy's hand sitting on the very last seat left corner, who waved his arm out to him in a gesture for him to sit.

Alex took the offered seat next to the nice black-haired guy without second thought. He sat placing his bookbag on his lap and wrapped his arms around his mid torso, still making sure to make zero eye contact, he stared blankly down at the bus' aisle.