DISCONNECTED

One

DAY 0, TUESDAY

The shaking hadn't stopped yet, unfortunately. She was too worried. Too nervous. Maybe they knew.

No, that'd be ridiculous!

How could they know about last night? Her nerves were playing tricks on her. Her and Lynn were only at the school for a few minutes, Melly estimated. On top of that Lynn only spray painted that one wall, the one with the broken camera. The damage was minimal. Well except for the broken window. That part had been her fault.

Her friend had somehow convinced to participate in the crime. To tag along as she painted the word, "Rise" on the brick. To shatter the glass of some teacher's classroom. The sound of the shards hitting the ground still resonated in her ears, haunting her every step.

But it was barely even her fault right? She wasn't holding the spray bottle and she didn't want to throw the rock. Right? Well one thing was for sure: she regretted all of it. The thoughts made her head pound. It was hard to dismiss them.

On top of it all she felt as if the two other kids beside her were silently judging. Each morning the three saw each other at this very bus stop, the only teens in their neighborhood to go to Great Mount High.

 They had never exchanged any words and barely even looked in her direction, but that day, she was almost sure they noticed something. Maybe that they noticed the shakiness of her hands. The two could have seen how difficult it was for her to breathe.

Though if they did, they made sure not to show it. Both were still and silent as statues.

Rye, standing to her left, kept staring right ahead. Her short kinky hair sticking up as the breeze blew by. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of a washed out hoodie. She'd gotten it from a cousin she was close with. Wearing it reminded Rye of her.

The last time she'd seen her cousin the year before. Rye looked up to her for as long as she could remember. Her cousin, Kosi, seemed to do everything right. It was only natural for her to want to follow in her footsteps. The hoodie was a reminder of that. Which is partly why she debated in her head what to do about what she knew.  Melly's little secret. She was at the school the night before, only a dozen meters away from Melly when she held the spray can. Did she realize that? Should she turn her in? She thought. That wouldn't be very smart, she calculated again. Turning someone one in without some sort of incentive. This was the perfect blackmail- Well it could be. She didn't have anything specific she wanted but if she ever did, it could be useful.

Her thoughts continued to swarm her. Morals stepped into the conversation and after a minute she tried to dismiss thoughts of blackmail. Kosi wouldn't do that, so neither would she. Keeping dirt on someone you barely even knew to use against them later was terrible, she tried to convince herself. She was not the type. 

The breeze continued to blow.

Rye seemed to stand at peace while her mind fought internal battles. So quiet. Just as it had been for the past 24 hours. 

For the full 24 hours before then, she hadn't spoken a word. Unsure of why. Which was why she surprised herself when she responded to the tall guy who had appeared beside her. He had walked over next to her.

"Hey," He said.

And she'd replied, "Hi."

"Cole," The boy continued. Expecting Rye to reply with her name. Instead, he was faced with more silence. She turned back to face the road and watched the rickety bus drive down the street towards the trio.  After a the girl on her right got on, she stepped in, leaving Cole without an answer.

Cole hopped in after, listening to the pounding in his head. He was arguing with the voices of his head as well. His mind kept replaying a scene from last night. he thought about how almost everyday he'd seen the girl at the stop, but never once on the midnight train. The one he took at least a couple times a week. He used it to travel far away from the neighborhood, somewhere where there was no one from around his home. Not once had he seen ever anyone he knew on the train, except for the night before.  Rye - or to him, 'no-name girl' had been chilling on one of the seats. 

The night he noticed her,  he tried to convince himself his glasses were 'just dirty', but no. There she was. On his secret midnight train. 

The entire event had made him nervous, he didn't know what she knew or had been doing there.He had  tried to talk to her that morning to get on her good side, just in case. Her lack of response after he volunteered his name threw him off. Nervous, he stayed quiet the entire ride to Great Mount. Stressing about what she may have known. 

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