13

By Lily Olson
My toes hung over the edge of the curb. Cars whizzed by, inches from them. I leaned into
the street during a brief pause in traffic. My head was craned sideways as I squinted up the fourlane road. I was trying to spot my bus appearing out of the horizon at the top of the long hill.
There was no bus. I stepped back towards the little shelter provided for protection against the
weather. It was very considerate of the city to give the users of public transportation three walls
and a roof which barely kept the rain off. Forget the shade, on days like this one; the only way to
take shelter from the sun was to loiter in the doorways of the shops that ran up and down the
slope.
I couldnt stand in the entrances though, not if I wanted to smoke. Instead, I leaned
against the stucco wall, scuffing the toe of my dark brown cowboy boot against the sidewalk.
The hem of my bell-bottoms dragged on the dirty concrete and caught under my heel. I retrieved
my red and white pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of my shirt, an item from my
boyfriends wardrobe. I squatted down, my lighter snapping to life. As people walked past me, I
tried to judge their lives by their shoes. A young woman moved across my line of sight in spiky,
silver, studded Valentino flats. Id seen them on a shopping trip a few months prior. On display in
the store I had thought they were best suited for the self conscious and insecure.
Absent-mindedly, my free hand began to trace patterns on my boyfriends button down.
The soft cotton was fuzzy from not being washed. It had a smell too, like bed sheets left
unchanged for so long that they had obtained a heavy, stale scent from the sweating bodies. I
rolled the left sleeve up and ran my index finger over the soft, smooth skin just below my inner
elbow before dragging it down to repeat the motion over the large vein on my inner wrist.
The vehicles on the street had been humming idly, stopped for a traffic light. They surged

forward again leaving behind a cloud of fumes for bus 13 to arrive. It slammed to a halt, brakes
huffing, as the people inside strained to remain upright. I stood and walked to the front. I was
looking down, digging for the $2.50 I had already counted out. Grinding my cigarette out under
my foot I stepped onto the bus. The harsh stop was quickly explained as an extremely overweight
woman in a black beret glared at me from behind the steering wheel. She continued to stare me
down as I took my sweet time feeding my money into the machine. I was enjoying every second
of it. By the final fifty cents she had grown tired of my shenanigans and had started to maneuver
back into traffic. I snatched my ticket and tottered towards the back of the bus. I kept my
mirrored sunglasses on as I plopped into one of the three empty seats facing the exit door.
Despite the air conditioning, I knew my denim-clad ass would be moist with sweat soon.
Normally, my eyes would be darting back and forth behind my shades, checking out the
other passengers around me, but today they werent. I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair,
my hand moving to finger the hem of my shirt. I offhandedly wondered if any strangers had ever
urinated on the dark, velveteen fabric under me. I would have asked Alex if he was here with me,
it would have made him laugh, but all I had was his clothing.
The last time I was on the bus with him had been almost a month ago. It had been one of
the last chilly days in spring and Alex had the whole day off work. The 14 line ran a few blocks
away from his apartment and we caught it in the early afternoon. Both of us were damp from the
mist outside when we sat down in the very back of the almost empty bus. Alex was buried in his
favorite oversized black Carhartt jacket and his dark brown hair poked out from under his knit
hat. He was smiling, his crooked and pointy teeth peeking out from behind his lips. He kept his
arm around me the whole ride, the most physical affection he had shown in a long time. He was
good today. We were out to get milkshakes, chocolate for him, vanilla for me. He drank his in

about five minutes. On the ride home I ended up giving him the rest of my own shake and
watched him slurp it down. The empty paper cup was crushed between us when he leaned over
to kiss me.
I love you.
I almost cried then, those words I had not heard in an eternity and would never hear from him
again.

It was so simple, he had done the same thing a hundred times over. I shouldnt have let
him keep at it that long. If only he had used the same amount. He always told me he was careful
and I had convinced myself that he wasnt lying. The rational part of me understood why Alex
had upped his dose. I knew the physical and psychological aspects of tolerance but I couldnt
believe he was so stupid, in that moment, to be that careless. Any dimwit should have known
better and he was so smart. I let him down, I promised Alex I would look out for him, but I
didnt. So, he died that day, alone and blue, in a bathtub left to overflow and leak into the
apartment below by his buddy who ran away from responsibility.
Of course, I already knew, from a curt visit by the police, of his death by the time his
little junkie friend had the misfortune of running into me. He approached me on the street in
front of Petersons convenience mart where Alex bought his soda at everyday when he went
home from work. I waited for him to finish his account of the event.
He tried to list off the reasons he didnt call for help, he would have been arrested, there
wouldnt have been time, Alex would have suffered anywaysI stopped listening after a bit and
stared at him. He was the reason Alex was gone. I was doing it before I really knew it; the sole of
my motorcycle boot hit the buttons on his fly.

Filthy rat! I cursed him and left him doubled over on the pavement running past the onlookers
as fast as legs could.

Alexs body had been released to his parents, who lived down the coast. I didnt attend
the funeral. Id only met them once before and they made it quite clear they didnt like being
around me. They certainly didnt like their son hanging around me. Theyd never believe Alex
had been shooting up long before I met him. They would have made me the reason he was
hooked, and Id never even touched the stuff. I should have told them anyways.
I was jolted out of my memories by the bus screeching to another particularly rough halt.
I braced against my seat to avoid being thrown into the Rasta man who had taken the empty
space beside me. I turned my head just enough to eyeball him from behind my ever present
sunglasses. I could hear him humming a tune over the rest of chatter in the air.
My gaze moved over the other passengers. An elderly woman sat in the back with curlers
in her hair. It was a look you didnt see very often anymore. Her purse was sea foam green
crocodile skin. A young punk boy sat up on the handicap bench, his dyed, spiked hair and $200
Doc Martens made me snicker. Those who fuck nuns will later join the church. A man in a
basketball uniform with a bright red Grizzly Adams beard and a shaved head sat alone, three
rows behind the wannabe. His shorts had ridden up and I could easily see the top section of his
left butt cheek. Two women, a few years younger than me, sat together staring at their phones as
if the other wasnt there. One of them wore a hoodie from the local university and the other had a
blonde streak in her hair that made her resemble a skunk.
Three people had boarded the bus at this stop. The first was a very tidy looking middleaged woman in a powder blue blouse. She looked at the bearded redhead, pausing for the

slightest fraction of a second, before continuing to another empty seat next to an equally well
dressed man in a green plaid shirt and prescription glasses.
The next two people who had boarded appeared to be together, as the man was leaning on
the girl. They passed by me, brushing against my legs, and filed up the two stair steps to the back
of the bus. They took the very first row of double seating on the left. The girl slid in first, looking
out the window briefly. She seemed to be young, maybe just out of high school. Her jeans were
worn and her red tee shirt was faded, but her dark brown hair was shiny and her eyes were
bright. She wore no makeup and silver hoops hung from her ear lobes.
The guy she was with was hardly groomed at all. I saw the side of his cargo pants from
my seat and they hung off his hips, stained across the lap and down his leg. His maroon waffle
knit shirt was ripped. The hole allowed a tuft of chest hair to poke through. The brown strands on
his head hung in clumps brushing the tips of his ears and a few weeks worth of stubble had
collected on his hollow face. He slumped onto his friends shoulder when he sat, as if it was too
much trouble to even hold him self up. The girl reached her free arm up, glancing down at him,
as she began to stroke his dirty head. In a few minutes, his eyes closed and his jaw dropped open.
I watched them for the rest of my ride down the hill. He would wake every few minutes
and rearrange himself before drifting off again. The girl eventually stopped the motion of her
hand. I wanted to say something to her. She was a little girl. No matter how cool she thought her
friend was now, nothing good would come from hanging around him. He would break her heart
in two when his own stopped beating. It would be a ridiculous conversation, even if I knew how
to start it. I didnt have a clue though, and the more I tried to come up with an opener the more
my brain seemed to freeze. The memories of my own life were unable to be drawn out either but
they piled up against my throat, fast and harsh, blocking my airways. I shook myself and

knocked them back down.

I was so internalized I almost missed my stop and I desperately grabbed at the yellow
cable above the window behind me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my lap. My tardiness caused
the angry, fat, beret lady to slam to another halt, almost completely missing the bus stop. I stood,
passing the girl and her nodding off friend as I walked the three short steps to the exit. I glanced
up at her on my right, it was my last chance to speak but I couldnt find the right words. My lips
parted useless, my mouth too dry to form words.
I shoved the skinny double doors open with my forearms and dropped out onto the
scorching pavement. Turning, I fished in my pocket for my pack of cigarettes and lighter. People
rushed around me trying to catch their ride. I lit one, blinking away tears, as bus 13 pulled away
from the curb with a roar and a blast of warm air. I watched until it disappeared among the
buildings of the city, taking the girl away. I sat down on the ground, my face resting in my hands.
I could have prevented it.