the journal - h.s.

08

For a moment his gaze was focused on my hands, how I grabbed my bag and had pulled it tighter to my body. Crap. I was going to die. I started panicking on my inside, sitting straight up and with my mind rushing through the safety precautions I had once heard at some self defense presentation, which seemed as a memory from a different life right now.

"Are you alright?"

I jumped in the seat at the sound of his concerned voice and immediately slithered further away from him though I was blocked by the side of the bus.

"Yeah." I managed to croak, my eyes flickering between the exit and the driver. In the corner of my eye I noticed the guy shrugging, as he sat up resting his feet on the ground instead of the seat besides him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I dared to glimpse sideways at him again since he had moved his attention away from me. Surprised I discovered he was slowly spinning one of the rings on his right hand, he seemed pretty lost in thoughts and to my relief it seemed as if he had completely lost interest in me.

"Thanks again anyway."

He didn't look up at me, as he kept playing with the silver ring - opposite to me he wore it on his middle finger and it was quite wide, where to mine was thin. It had some kind of pattern, that I couldn't make out from here. I quickly looked the other way after realizing I had stared for too long in a try to make out the twisted pattern of the ring. But he didn't seem to have noticed my prying gaze I concluded relieved.

By not immediately answering his gratitude, the words were left hanging in the tensed air between us. When was my stop? While I couldn't wait to get out of here some wicked part of me didn't wish to leave him either - abandoned in this depressing bus with its fluorescent lighting and uncomfortable molded seats.

"Nothing," I stated after having pushed away the irrational urge to stay. As I noticed the familiar red brick building through the front window of the bus, I realized with joy, that my stop was next. Hitching up in the shoulder bag, while praying the guy wouldn't follow me out into the dark street, I got up from the plastic seat. Tiredness washed over me as I rose and  I gripped the bar for support. The guy kept looking at his ring. Spinning it slowly over and over and over. Now he didn't even seem to notice my presence, as I started moving towards the exit. For that I was somewhat relieved - if he had gotten up from his seat I would probably not have gotten off. And honestly I was so exhausted that even the idea of being caught inside this bus was something I tried pushing to the back of my mind. I just couldn't imagine that right now.

Standing at the door I looked back at him one last time, while I could feel the bus slowly losing speed. As I watched him he made a movement with his head flipping the wild hair to the side. It seemed as if he hadn't even noticed the action, as he sighed still with that furrow between his brows. Suddenly he let go off of the ring on his finger and stuck his hand into the pocket of his jacket, retrieving a blue ink pen. With curiousness I watched him as he started scribbling into the palm of his hand.

Too enchanted with the sight of this boy sitting in the green plastic seat of an otherwise empty bus, while rapidly scribbling into the palm of his hand and with that frustrating frown on his face, I didn't notice that the bus had stopped. I just stared at him taking in the sight of his impossible windy, humid hair, how his somewhat tanned skin seemed smooth as silk over his perfect bone structure. How he bit down on his slightly pink bottom lip in concentration, while getting the words of his haunting thoughts out, as his green eyes followed the point of the pen intensely.

He looked like something from some alternative, grunge polaroid picture with the disgustingly  bright light illuminating him sitting isolated in the ocean of the abandoned ugly plastic seats. What was he writing?