Through the Break in Her Hair

Chapter 3

The bus ride home that day sucked. More so than any other day, yes, but not by much. Bus rides sucked no matter what went on during school hours. It sucked more that day because Ben's sole focus, his only reason for being on that God darned bus was to annoy the crap out of me with a game of 2,000 questions.

"Dude, do you like her?"

"She's not that pretty, you know. Well, she's about as pretty as my great aunt Marge, if you find that hot?"

"Are you like, into glasses or something?"

"Amanda says she doesn't even shave yet! Ugh! Hairy legs man!"

"Enough!" I shouted, bowling Ben over. Up until that point I had been cutting Ben's voice out, putting the kid on mute, but after five whole minutes of question bashing, I just couldn't take any more.

I sighed and gripped my head in my hands. "Please, Ben, I'm begging you, no more questions."

He smiled and began to laugh, silently at least. His body shook like he had eaten a box of live fireworks and they were popping inside his stomach. He slapped my shoulder, sending me face first into the seat in front of me.

The kid in the next row stood up in his seat and turned around to face me. "What's your problem, man?" He had an air of try-to-tell-me-what-to-do-I-dare-you hanging around him in a noxious cloud— high-schooler and way bigger than me.

But size never counted for much when you could see things in the future, when you could peer into someone's actions before they acted. "You are right now, why don't you sit back down and shut up," I said haughtily, holding his gaze.

You see, normal me— without visions— would have apologized, groveled, offered up servitude, you name it, anything to keep me out of a confrontation. But my visions always showed me what the outcome of the "real me" would be and it was never pretty.

For instance, if I had bowed down to this guy, next week he would slam his shoulder into me at lunch, knocking both our trays out of hands, and blame me for the collision. Then he'd "force" me to clean it up while he and his friends had front row seats to the dancing monkey act, better yet, the dancing Johnny act.

I took the chance, the risk at being bold, and arrogant to prove that I wouldn't be shoved around by some squad of jerks for their entertainment. And it paid off.

The jerk in question huffed and threw himself back down in his seat, disappearing behind the wall of leather. Ben's mouth dropped open and a strangled laugh flew out of him. "Dude! How did you do that?" he hissed, elbowing me in the ribs. "That guy's sophomore...on the wrestling team!"

I shrugged, hoping to bypass anymore unnecessary praise and or adoration— it wasn't really me, after all. "I dunno, I guess I was feeling a little annoyed by all those questions you vomited up on me. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Half of Ben's mouth turned up in a slick smile. "Aw, Johnny, you'd never talk to me that way, would ya?" He laughed, throwing his arm around my shoulders and pulling me in for a quick squeeze.

"Let me go before people start thinking there's something going on between us." I rammed my shoulder into his chest, pushing him back by at least six inches. I was trying to escape one rumor, I didn't want to get tangled into another.

Ben pulled his arm back. "You'd be so lucky," he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes and slid up next to the window so that my forehead rested on the cool glass, counting the cars to pass the time. Fifteen more minutes until my stop. Fifteen minutes sounded like an eternity though and I couldn't get off this stuffy death trap quick enough.