Smoke

9: A Story

I got on the bus, my footsteps light, my body feeling heavy as I dropped into a seat in the middle of the bus. I closed my eyes, sighed, and looked out the window.

My face was tired from putting up so many acts. I had to not be confused for the teachers, had to hide my self consciousness when I walked into a classroom for the first time, had to constantly act like I was fine even though I was about to freak out and smoke up the whole room. I was a lot less stressed when I had to hide the smoke from my friends. I had to hide myself, but it felt like I was still doing that now, somehow.
At least then I had people to talk to. I had friends. Now I didn't have anyone.

I shook my head, brought my hand to my face to rub my eyes.
There were feet in the aisle, a thud in the seat next to me.
I stopped, pulling my hand down, hiding my frustration, my tiredness, looking over to see who sat next to me. It was Oliver again. I breathed out, tense but relieved. He shouldn't even want to talk to me.

"So I just had English class, with Mrs. Kipps, and so she started calling out names to see who was there." Oliver started talking, smiling, as if he could just start a conversation like that. I guess he could. I was looking at him to see if he was talking to me. He was.
His words went past my head, and I didn't know what he was talking about, but I tried to at least pretend to listen.

"And so this guy named Trent, he sits right in front of me, I see him peek his head through the door, and he's so late." He said, smiling. I could hear the starts of an amused laugh. Looking at him, his eyes, his wide smile, I couldn't tell why he was bothering to talk to me.

"So I see him open the door while her back is turned, and she's getting out the list of names. He sees her start to turn again, and his face is white and he's so scared, and I see him jump onto the ceiling, creeping towards the top of his desk." Oliver's hands were moving while he talked.
His eyes were wide, excited. "He's right above his desk now, and all of us are just trying not to laugh." He says, taking a breath, seeing my reaction. I give him a small, confused smile.

He shouldn't even be talking to me, but now that he is, my mind starts drifting to when my friends just jumped on me with a story, when they were upset or happy or ranting, and shared their stories with me.  He reminded me of them. It made me feel like he was my friend, too.

"And then Mrs. Kipps, while looking at the list of names, she's shaking her head. She already knows that he's there. She says 'You're late, young man.' And she's mad, she's glaring at all of us. Trent and I make eye contact and I'm trying to look sympathetic, but I'm also trying not to laugh with the rest of the class." Oliver shakes his head, an amused smile still on his face.

"And then he sighs, about to crawl back down, but then he loses his balance and his grip and he just falls down onto his desk." He paused to take a quick breath. "The whole class goes silent for a second but we're all trying to hold back our laughs, and Mrs. Kipps is so mad. She's looking up at the ceiling, and we all look up there too, and we see footprints."

He smiles at me. "She's trying to decide what to do, so she sends him to the nurse, and while he's about to walk out of the room, she hands him a detention, too." Oliver seemed so excited, so amused. "He's been late multiple times, but he usually makes it into his chair." He smiles, a few remaining chuckles escaping his body.

I can't help but laugh quietly with him. It was infectious, and I haven't had a friend for a while. It was refreshing, being able to listen to someone share their stories without me having to worry about my power. To laugh.

"Thanks for talking to me." I say quietly, meeting his blue eyes.
"Yeah, no problem. You look like you could use a distraction." He smiled at me again, his eyes squinting. He was right, I realized. Just then, he was just what I needed.

I looked out the window, more relaxed than before, and waited for my stop.