The Girl Who Sat in the Corner

Chapter 5 - Bus

Remarkably, Wesley did get a decent night's sleep for once. The morning was clear, bright and cooler than the past few days. The winds had calmed. The school bus was late, but Wesley barely noticed. He found an empty seat by a window and stared at the hills. There was very little haze this morning and they were glowing gold in the rising sun.

Two stops later, his reverie was broken by a boisterous laugh he knew all too well. His face flushed cold and his muscles tensed. When it came to bullying people, Doug Pratt was a member of the school's elite. Always vicious, almost never caught. The only reason people were friendly with him was to avoid becoming a target. Doug Pratt wasn't large. In fact he was pretty skinny and wiry, with narrow-set, dead-looking eyes and thin lips that managed to scowl even when he was smiling. He walked like the earth beneath him became his as soon as he touched it.

Wesley knew he was more than a target. He had become Doug Pratt's "special project," as he was told early in the school year. "You think your stupid little life is miserable now?" Pratt asked while pinning him up against the hard concrete wall. "I'm gonna' make sure it gets a lot worse." And he did.

Now, it was a couple of weeks since Pratt gave Wes any real trouble, so he expected him to make up for lost time sometime soon. When he got to Wes's seat, he learned this would be the day.

"I think I'm gonna' sit with my GIRL-friend today!" He sat down next to Wes and wrapped his arm around Wes's shoulder, pulling him close. "Hey baby, it's been SOOO long!" Pratt was speaking close to Wes's ear, but loud enough so the whole bus could hear him. "Something wrong, little girl?"

The hot, sweaty, germy arm felt like a tentacle that would crush the life out of him. Wesley took a couple of fast breaths and then forced himself not to hyperventilate despite his sudden panic. If the bully found out what a just touch did to him, he would be far worse off. He tried to shut himself away, but his shell wouldn't form. He was too scared.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" He laughed loudly at his own brilliant humor. "Did I say something to hurt you?" And with that, his left fist drove in low arc into Wes's stomach like an steel piston. He did it while barely moving his shoulders or changing the expression on his face. The bus driver would never notice. All the air left Wes's lungs in a single rush and bright stars swam in front of his eyes.

"You'd tell me if you were mad, wouldn't you?" Another punch, even harder than the first. Behind the swirling stars, his vision darkened. It was like trying to breathe in a vacuum. "Well, if you don't want to talk to me, I guess I should sit somewhere else. Bye, sweetie!" He planted a wet kiss on Wes's cheek and got up.

There was probably laughter but Wes didn't hear it. He was dying for air but it was too painful to breathe. His shell formed around him and he was at the bottom of cool, dark well. He could feel his body in agony and struggling for air, but that was somewhere else. The well would bury his memory of what happened safely away somewhere. His robot would take him through the school day while Wesley recovered, locked away in the dark place that protected him when things got really bad. However for now, his robot was still having trouble getting Wesley to start breathing.

Wes sat in the darkness and started working on an equation that had been puzzling him lately. The numbers and symbols formed on a whiteboard in his mind. Later, while he was sitting in class, he scratched the figures down, making it look like he was taking notes. His robot was usually smart enough to give an answer if he was called on.