Encounter on the Bus Part III
Previously on Encounter on the Bus...
"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.
*****
She counted the moments in her head. There were still a couple of hours to sort this all out. It had only been thirty, maybe forty-five minutes since the encounter on the bus? His steely blue eyes and skin whiter than a piece of printer paper. His breath at the nape of her neck. She shuddered. At least she still had a couple of hours to sort everything out. Took a seat on her bed and unfolded a thin, tattered receipt from a few months ago. She kept it tucked in the back pocket of a pair of jeans she seldom washed. Letters were scrawled across the back, but she’d gotten rained on so many times that it was no longer legible. With a sigh, she hung her head.
She shouldn’t have been mixed up in any of this. But there’d been no choice that night. She’d been sitting at a booth, legs crossed, hair slicked back into a low ponytail. Three nights straight she’d had her weight in drinks on tap, and three mornings straight, she decided to drink more to kick the hangover. That night was no different. She sipped on Dark Fruit, her second pint of the night, waited impatiently for her father to get back from betting on something pointless with jobless blokes at the pool table. He wasn’t really her father—she snorted and raised her glass to that—but he was twenty five years her senior, and she didn’t have anything better to call him.
"What kind of sorry excuse for a man leaves a half-wasted girl to sit on her own at the pub?" She swayed as she spoke. He slid into the booth next to her and wrapped an arm around her. His touch was neither pleasant nor uncomfortable. He said nothing. She finished the rest of her pint.
"How long have you known me?" He ran his fingers along a crease in his shirt.
That was a dumb question. She’d always known him.
"And how well would you say you know me?"
As well as any girl would know her father figure, she supposed. Maybe more than average, since she had only him and no mother. He kept shifting his weight in the seat. His arm seemed to grow heavier around her shoulder. She lifted her glass to her lips even though it was empty, and kept it in her grasp once the bottom was resting back on the table.
The rest of the night was a painful, blurry mess. She’d left the pub on her hands and knees, covered in blood from glass puncture wounds and from the dying body of a stranger. Her entire body was weak and trembling. Her father had gone—but not before jotting a haunting note on the back of their receipt for ten pounds worth of drinks.
What I’ve done is yours to bear. Tell no one of it. Be wary of those who may already know.
For years, she’d pretended it didn’t bother her. What did it matter that she was framed for a stranger’s death if no one knew? She’d never had to admit what had happened to anyone—the truth that it was her father, or the lie that it was her. For six years, she’d carried this cross, and her knees no longer buckled under its weight.
Persistent pounding at the door woke her. Rain pattered gently against the window. The room still stank of putrid citrus. Her hand was dangling off the edge of her mattress. Her fingers danced dangerously close to the pile of broken glass. The receipt had fallen on top of the broken frame. Her mind was bogged down with sleep and vivid dreams of the memory she wished she could forget. When had she dozed off? She sat up and reached for her phone that now had fifteen percent battery left. The pounding on the door continued. Her stomach sank when she noticed the time.
19:27.
The End
Written by Reina F McKenzie
Photo Taken by
Photo Edited by Fotos Royales Photography
