the long way home [ h.s. ]

Ten | 10

ten | 10

☓

There's a stretch of silence where I highly doubt he's going to say anything.

He has a certain look on his face-- eager, like there is something right on the verge of leaving his lips, mixed with extreme discomfort.

The two of us look around wildly to try to find things that'll distract us from talking. Seat leather, passing fields, the little knick-knacks which dangle somberly from the driver's mirror.

Anything but the other person.

It's strange how warm I've gotten with him sitting here-- the seats are not quite big enough to give us distance, so the sides of our arms touch, and the curve of our hips.

Through the barriers of our jeans, mine slightly lighter in color and his flecked with deep midnight blues, I can feel the half-dried denim of my pair soaking in the water from his drenched ones.

Raindrops cling onto the tips of his hair and drip downward conditionally.

There's an ongoing battle in my brain of why he wants to sit in the same seat as me on a completely empty bus and then not say a single thing, just stare forward with his hands on his knees and breathe out from his mouth in soft exhales.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek and debate on offering some sort of comforting remark-- he is still noticeably red around the eyes, contrasting the spring-colored pigment that I've named him for, half hidden by heavy lids.

He clears his throat lightly.

No words follow.

My cheek begins to hurt.

It's none of my business to ask him anything about his woes-- that much is common knowledge and I won't let interest persuade me.

But it is brutally tempting, when I know I shouldn't do it. My energy and growing nervousness eat at me on the inside:

Pushing my boundaries.

The second my eyes land on the nearing stop of the soon-to-be third passenger, I feel him shift beside me, and turn to fully devote my attention.

He's shifted 90 degrees, completely facing me.

One of his elbows is propped on the seat in front of us, the other draped over the back of our own.

His brows draw inward; acutely focused.

"You offered for me to sit with you, that one day."

The first sentence.

The first string of words, low and deep and steadily uttered.

I nearly forgot about how interesting his voice was-- before, I'd only experienced the sound of it through one word, "hello." It slipped my mind completely, how he is not from America.

I've never met a European before.

A true one, at least.

Following his outburst, I feel awfully confused, and embarrassed--

"I'm sorry?"

He sucks in his bottom lip, holds it there, then releases it.

"You said I could sit with you. Why?"

The harsh curiosity in his eyes is almost painful to hold onto. My breathing is uneven because I don't really know what to say-- my mind settles on the simple truth, and I fold my hands together in my lap.

"There wasn't any room."

"You didn't have to offer."

"Where else would you have sat, then?"