Palindrome

Forty-Five

Chapter 45

Coffee.

I need caffeine.

Blinking groggily, I survey the empty parking lot through the misty bus window. It's six in the morning, extremely frosty and I can barely keep my eyes open. Most of the bus is still empty, Ma dragged me out of bed claiming that I needed to be on time. She's treating it like I was moving off to college or catching an international flight.

Paxton's outside with Bronwyn and Blake coordinating baggage drop-offs with everyone that pulls up to the front of the school. Having nothing better to do, I take out my air pods and plug them in each ear. Scrolling through Spotify, I play one of my mixes.

Then the strangest thing happens.

I can't stand the music.

Shuffling through my account, I play another playlist, and another and another. None of them work, instead making the throbbing sensation in my head so much worse.

"Have you tried Bollywood music?"

I look up to see a girl with glinting brown eyes stare down at me. Saanvi's perched presumably on her knees on her seat, looking at me from over it. Her hair's short now, the highlights she used to have chopped off. There's this also this different glow to her as well.

Well at least one of us is better.

"I have not," I answer.

Bollywood or Indian Hollywood isn't something I tend to gravitate towards, even though I'm fluent in Hindi. Ma's tried multiple times, considering she grew up on a steady diet of these films. The plots are just so overthought and ridiculous. And the music. Every movie's a freaking musical.

This could be the whitewashing I've gone through as an ABCD.

"May I?" she asks holding her hand out.

It's not like I have anything better. I slip my phone into her hand and she taps it gingerly before sweet melodies start playing through my ears.

She gives me my phone back. "Just a playlist of mine."

"Thank you," I say, hoping she knows that I mean it.

Judging from the grin that lights up her face she does.

"Hey Saanvi, was I supposed to bring a passport? All I have in my school ID and-"

Rolling her eyes, Saanvi turns her attention to her friend sitting by her, "Vaish, you're good. Quit worrying about everything dude."

I hear another loud sigh and grumbling next to her which seems reminiscent of how I used to be. Except for the things that make me anxious have changed drastically.

"Catch ya later Aarohi," Saanvi says giving me a lazy salute.

"You know it," I tell her as she switches seats with some other friends and they descend into excited chatter. Saanvi's music still drifts into my ears, and I find myself liking Bollywood music for the first time in my life. Smiling into my hand I shut my eyes leaning my head against the cool surface of the window. For once, I'm glad I'm not driving. Tracing my fingers over the window, drawing out invisible patterns for no one's pleasure but my own. I think back to the night when Paxton stood outside my window and the words, I sprawled on an impulse without him knowing.

"Is that seat taken?"

There he is.

Sunlight filters through the windows of the bus lighting his scarlet hair ablaze and his green eyes that seem to shift like a kaleidoscope. Dressed in an oversized hoodie and jeans, that familiar band on his wrist and a new ring rests on his left ring finger. His knuckles have healed and so as has the cut on his lip just in time for state. In one hand Paxton's got a cup of iced coffee which is a first for him. I shake my head in response to his question and he smiles softly sitting down beside me.