The Story of Mark and Mina

Chapter 5

I could ditch. I mean the idea sounded...alluring. Leave the school before Mark could catch up to me. It was a promising idea...except for the fact that Mark would have me dead tomorrow. He would force me to quit being the manager again...he stopped asking me to quit ever since the first day, which was a relief to me. But I knew that if I ditched he would make sure that I wasn't going to be the manager anymore. I winced just at the thought.

So I waited for him at the front. It was a few minutes before he tapped my shoulders and I turned around. "Let's go." He said walking towards the public transit bus.

I gulped as I walked faster to match his pace, "uh...are we going to the bus stop?"

Mark nodded, "yeah, it's a bit further away from school...it's an old sports store."

"About that..."

"Say it clearly." He said harshly, probably annoyed that I couldn't just come out and say what I wanted. He walked inside the bus and poured a few coins inside the metal looking box. I fumbled, trying to open my bag to get my money. He sighed and shoved more coins inside the box.

Before I could mumble a 'thanks', Mark walked towards a vacant seat. I sat beside him opening my bag to give back his money.

"Don't bother." He said plainly and I didn't. I didn't bother fighting with him about it because it would've caused a scene in a bus and I rather not have that. I'll just sneak a few coins in his bag without him looking...But, I would do that another time because I had another worrisome issue going on.

"I don't know how to get back home after this. I don't go on buses, I usually walk home." I fidgeted with my hands and looked down. I closed my eyes, ready for him to tell me how much of an idiot I am.

Instead he said something surprising, "I'll walk you home then. What's your address?" I did a double take before looking at him suspiciously. There was no way in hell Mark would want to walk me home...the thought of that made my heart beat a little faster than usually. Probably because being alone with him for a long time terrified me. In a bad way that is.

"You don't have to. Just give me pointers back to school then I'll know how to get home."

He ignored what I had just said and took out his iPhone. He clicked the GPS app, "Give. Me. Your. Address." He enunciated every word as if I was a little toddler that didn't understand a word he was saying.

"32 Cresant Street." I mumbled.

He typed the address in his phone. "It's pretty easy to walk to your house without using the bus, so we'll walk after we're done buying some equipment."

I nodded not wanting to start conflict with him, partly because it would be a pain to fight again and...because I was squished beside him. A larger man (practically all muscles...a little too much muscle) had sat down beside me, forcing me to press myself against Mark. Our thighs were touching and our hips were almost linked closely together. It didn't help that whenever the bus made a huge bump, I would grab onto Mark's shirt so I wouldn't fall onto his lap. Apparently Mark was indifferent to this invasion of personal space as he wrapped his arm around me and pushed me closer to him so that my head was lying on his chest "Stop fucking moving." How sweet.

I remembered when Anna told me that 'bus moments' were romantic. She told me her ex- boyfriend would wrap his arms around her waist so he could protect her from evil men on the bus stop. Yeah, I think they were being pretty dramatic. Even Lily, a friend of mine, would babble on and on about how she wished the handsome guy on the bus stop would notice her. Lily was pretty hardcore about love, even more so than Anna. That's probably why I didn't hang out with her as often as I wished. She was in so many clubs to meet her, 'soul mate'. So when Mark wrapped his arms around me I couldn't really feel anything. Maybe it was because he says the most irritable things in the world or maybe because his grip on me was so tight, I couldn't breathe.