The Chronicles of a Public Bus (part 2.04)

Thursday, 14:30, route 31

The bus sings with joy as it rumbles through town, and every student onboard has caught a major case of glee. As a prelude to opening night, the drama program showed the first few scenes of their musical to the entire student body, and everyone is psyched.

Or rather, mostly everyone is psyched. In the very back of the bus, a little corner of gloom cowers from the happiness around it, and sitting in that corner is Willow. Her eyes are puffy, and wet smears dot the ends of her coat sleeves. Next to her, Divinity roots through her backpack for a tissue.

“I-I don’t get it,” Willow stutters. She hiccups, and her whole body rattles. “I thought maybe I’d earned a little more trust back from him this morning, since he invited me to see his turning, b-but then…” Another hiccup breaks Willow’s hold on coherency, and she cries into the zippers on her backpack.

Divinity offers a slightly crumpled tissue and wishes she was anywhere but with weeping Willow. When they were kids, it had always been Drake’s job to provide comfort, and now Divinity feels very out of her element. “What did Drake do?” she asks.

“He left in the middle of fourth hour.” Willow grabs the tissue and blows her nose with snowstorm force. “But the thing is, he sits right next to me—we share a desk, even—and he didn’t tell me anything, not if it was a family emergency, or if he was turning early and I couldn’t watch. He said nothing!”

“I see.”

“And then,” Willow continues, “when Martin and I checked our phones at lunch, we hadn’t even gotten a text.”

Divinity shrugs and glances out the window. “You didn’t trust him again right away either. Give it some time, Willow. Besides, maybe Drake just didn’t want to make you worry.” She refrains from mentioning Willow’s unfortunate tendency to overreact to anything even mildly upsetting.

As Willow considers this, she folds her tissue into precise quarters and blows her nose again. Then she inhales with a long sniffle and pastes on a brave face which, because of her frown, looks rather like a pout.

“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sure everything is okay.” Of course, after a second of silence Willow deflates again and hugs herself. “Maybe I should call or go visit just to make sure. Do you think Drake would mind, or would that just be annoying?”

Rolling her eyes, Divinity replies that if Drake minds, he’ll never let it affect his opinion of Willow, and he’ll probably find her worrying very touching as soon as the ordeal loses its importance.

“But what if I accidentally touch a hoard item and get frozen again? I’m sure you won’t be happy to carry me and my textbooks around a second time, and neither will he. Oh, I’m such a nuisance, aren’t I?”

“You will be if you worry about this anymore,” Divinity says. “Now lean back so I can press the stop button.”

Willow scoots into the back of her seat, watching Divinity’s arm stretch towards the bright red stop button. Just as Divinity presses the button, and a light ping echoes through the bus, she freezes, fingers still lingering on the white letters for ‘stop.’ Her face is drawn into tight solemnity, eyebrows cinched together and mouth pulled in a straight line.

“Before I forget,” Divinity starts, “I saw a pretty big bird spirit this morning, and it said something about eating rabbits. You should probably talk to your mom about it.”

Every muscle in Willow’s body tenses, and her mouth drops open with an quiet pop. “How big was it?”

“At least two stories tall, though most of that was leg. Are you going to be okay?”

“I-I don’t know,” Willow murmurs. “But I guess if something like that is chasing after me, I can’t put myself at risk of being unable to move my physical body.” With a shuddering breath, she places a delicate hand on the seat in front of her and watches her tendons push and pull her wiry fingers through the melody of a piano sonata. “I suppose visiting Drake will have to wait a little.”