Encounter on the Bus
This brief encounter was written as an assignment for a short stories course taken abroad at the University of Stirling in Scotland.
She shivered as she shed the bright red raincoat from around her shoulders and tucked it underneath her arm. She reached up and wiped a few droplets of sweat from her forehead with one hand while the other sat in her lap, her fingers drumming gently on her upper thigh. The seat was far too cold. No one must’ve sat there for quite a few stops. The time on her phone read 16:07—the bus was a few moments early, yet had still nearly pulled off without her. She settled into her seat and ran through her grocery list one last time in her head. Eggs—a full dozen this time—some milk, a couple jars of jelly, if there was any grape in stock this time, and maybe a frozen pizza for Friday night.
“May I sit here?”
She glanced up and noticed a familiar face: soft blue eyes, a friendly smile curled up on thin, pink lips, skin as pale and pure as porcelain—though it was odd that porcelain was what came to mind, since it wasn’t usually a word used to speak of a man’s skin, but it was all she could think of to describe his.
She nodded wordlessly, and shifted to the left to make room for him and his backpack.
He wasn’t familiar by much. She’d only just met him a couple of days earlier as she was leaving the pub alone with chili sauce staining the front of her blue, shoulder-less dress. She’d stared at him for several moments too long, and he’d stared right back, his blue eyes searching her brown ones. Even then, his stark white skin contrasted so greatly against the blue-black of the night. His name was Becks—either that, or asshat, as those had been the two things she’d heard his buddy call him—and he’d winked at her once that night.
Now, he was winking at her again and nudging her gently with his brown shoe as he wiggled and shifted in his uncomfortable seat.
“Quite a night out tonight, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice hushed and his tone as cold as his breath at the nape of her neck. Every last muscle in her body went still.
“P-pardon?” she gulped.
“I’m done playing this silly little game where you pretend not to know, and I pretend not to notice." His hand clamped down on her shoulder. “So I’ll make you a deal: I’ll get off at this next stop. You have three hours from then to turn yourself in. After 19:00, there will be consequences to face.”
With that, the bus pulled up to the curb, he snatched up his bag, and was gone just as quickly as he’d appeared. She cursed quietly under her breath, and felt her face grow flushed. How hadn’t she figured it out before? Porcelain skin and icy blue eyes could only mean one thing—a mind reader. Becks—or asshat, though it didn’t quite matter what his name was now—he was a mind reader, and he knew what she’d done.
But now, she didn’t know what to do next.
