A Rainy Busride

                 Okay, the problem definitely wasn’t that he was not here; it was the fact that I wanted him to be here. These days it was always like this. Whenever he was around, all I wanted was for him to leave; but when he wasn’t here, all I wanted was for him to be standing beside me, his arm brushing mine. Despite hours and hours of analyzing this fact, I still hadn’t come up with a proper resolve as to the reason why.

                Sitting on the edge of the ripped leather seat now, I peered out the tinted, rain washed windows to search campus for his familiar face and tall stance. Finally, seconds before the bus was about to move, I saw him wearing a green soccer jersey and shorts, running with his bag over his head to shield himself from the downpour. Jogging up the steps into the bus, I saw him glance about and make his way down the row of seats to the back where I was seated. He dumped his bag on the end of the back seat and plopped down next to me.

                “How was anchoring?” He smirked.

                “Fine.” I raised an eyebrow. I was usually quite skeptical regarding his intentions. I still hadn’t quite figured out what he wanted from me.

                “And Josh?” He looked at the floor, and then peeked up at me to see my reaction to his innocent question, almost hesitant.

                I glared. “You don’t need to know.”

                “Just trying to be nice. Jeez.” He muttered.

                My gaze instantly softened. “Sorry,” I mumbled. He shrugged it off.

                “Anyways, what did you do today?” he asked.

                “Bunked English class to try and play ping pong with Lindsay.” I smiled mischievously. I was usually a real goodie good, and I wasn’t the sporty kind anyways, but today I had just felt like having a bit of fun.

                “Ping pong huh? Were you any good?” Again, I didn’t know whether he was being egotistical or whether he was just teasing.

                “I was better than Lindsay,” I replied.

                “Want to play?” He asked.

                “Here?”

                “Not now. Later.”

                “Where?” I questioned, perplexed.

                “We could go to Lincoln Shore.” He smiled.

                                My mind instantly stopped and my heart started to beat faster. He was asking me on a date. This is what he had wanted all along. I could feel the heat rush to my cheeks and I stared at the ground, embarrassed. There was no doubt that I was interested in him. More than I should have been, in fact. But I couldn’t do it. My heart was pulling me towards the opportunity, begging me to agree to his offer. After all, it was only a date. What could possibly happen? Nothing could go wrong, nothing would go wrong. Unless this relationship ended up like my last one…

                “No.” I told him, stiffly, firmly. I didn’t even give myself enough time to watch his hopeful expression fall. I simply turned away from his gaze and returned to my previous exercise of starting out the window.

                 The rain trickling down the window pane matched the tears running down my cheeks.