by Samantha Sapp
Lauryn glanced down at her phone—still, no response from Alex. She shifted in her bus seat, wincing as the half-sticky polyester blend chafed against her thighs. She should have worn longer shorts, and definitely not white shorts, but she’d grown up riding on leather seats. At least this bus didn’t smell of mildew like the first one in Orlando.
“Remind me, where was it you were headed to, honey?”
Lauryn turned to the old lady beside her. “Chicago.”
“Oh my. I’ve never been that far north. And such a big city too—what takes you there?”
“I’m visiting someone.”
“I’m traveling for a visit, too,” she beamed.
Lauryn returned the smile with a fake one. She’d had an entire row to herself until the transfer in Memphis. There, the bus had filled up fast—apparently, there were a lot of people so desperate to leave they were willing to take the cheapest commercial bus out. So, she’d chosen her seatmate carefully: no men, no children, and no junkies. That left the old lady in the third row. Unfortunately, there had been no way to discern a perhaps more important criteria—chattiness. Not that Lauryn was opposed to chatting, but the kind of people on a bus like this weren’t her type. The guy with his headphones on in the row in front of them seemed like a better option now, even if he had a kind of silent, serial killer vibe.
Noticing the silence, the old lady decided it needed filling. “My grandkids and their mother live in St. Louis. She didn’t want to stay in Natchez. None of the kids these days do, they all go to the big city. Like Chicago.”
Lauryn nodded, steadfastly ignoring eye contact by staring at the back of the guy’s head in the next row. Long blonde hair tufted out from beneath a ballcap.
“Are you worried about being in such a big city?”
Lauryn hummed and glanced down at her phone—still no response from Alex. Her knee began bouncing in jagged, anxious movement without her consent.
“Well, with how the world is changing and all, you won’t need to worry too much”
“Sorry?”
“The end-times are coming any day now. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were already dead. Someone online shared a story with me about these microchips they’re putting in everything, and—”
Oh no. Her brain had curdled from conspiracy in her old age. Lauryn tuned her out, instead looking out the window just past the old lady’s head. They were in Kentucky now, somewhere between south and north, and the trees had begun to change. Gone were the pine trees she knew; instead, the landscape was filled with hardwoods sitting slanted in mud. Their skeletons cowered under the dark clouds above. She’d never seen woods like this before, with trees like naked ghosts. Winter and spring never came in her part of Florida.
“You haven’t, right dear?”
Lauryn blinked. “Haven’t what?”
“Put one of those credit cards inside your phone. It’s how they track you.”
Lauryn knew that nothing good would come from engaging when the old lady was probably just upset because her credit was shit. But still, she was her father’s daughter and his disdain bled through. “Who is they and why would I care? It’s convenient. It’s easy. It’s not the Stone Age anymore.”
The old lady’s eyes bugged out. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you—”
Lauryn went back to tuning her out. And thankfully, the bus was pulling in somewhere—one of those sketchy gas stations in some empty purgatory that doubled as a bus stop. She’d seen too many of them since she left Orlando yesterday (or two days ago, or however long she’d been on this accursed bus trip), but now she was grateful.
As soon as the bus stopped, she made sure she was the first person out the door and into the convenience store. It was small, more of a shack than anything, and the walls were bare beyond dated advertisements with once-vibrant reds that had faded to worn pinks. She roamed the store for a snack that wouldn’t give her cancer, but there weren’t any—and strangely, they were all past their expiration date. Disgusting. She ignored the pang of hunger in her core and the reality that she couldn’t afford a snack anyway. Still, she burned as much time as she could, reading each ingredient list very thoroughly, waiting until the last person waiting in line to check out was done before following them out.
When she stepped outside, the sky was the dark, dim belly of the underworld. The color of everything had been sapped to a near-monochrome. It was raining now, too, and the smell of it mixed nauseatingly with diesel and tobacco. But most importantly, everyone from the bus was loitering under the overhang.
“Flat tire,” the driver shouted. “Mechanic is on his way. He’s gonna need to jack it up, so we’re gonna wait out here. The cashier agreed to let us stay outside, but not inside, so we’re stuck for a little while.”
Of course. It was just her luck. At least this way, she could put off sitting next to the old lady again, but she would have to sit next to someone because the overhang wasn’t that large. On one end were the people who looked normal and well adjusted—the bus driver, a mom traveling with her three kids, an older couple holding hands, and so on. There was no space left to sit there. Near the door were the borderline cases—the old lady who looked nice but ranted about microchips, the quiet guy with serial killer vibes, a fashionable girl with resting bitch face that reminded Lauryn too much of herself and everything she had lost, and so on. She could squeeze in there, but she was not sitting near that old lady, let alone the dirty mirror of herself.
Finally, on the other end of the overhang, she felt her father’s disdain build in her chest again at the sight of people she’d normally avoid at all cost. One was a twink in a floral tank top who was oddly intimidating; perhaps it was the buzzcut and messy tattoos. He was pounding down on cheese puffs, and by the awful smell of him, she figured he was probably stoned. The other was a redneck woman decked out with camo and some serious attitude. She was gnawing at her nails, and Lauryn was reminded of those rats who had to keep chewing or their teeth would grow inward and pierce their brain.
Lauryn glanced back to the old lady. Back to the two misfits. And somehow, the pair became a trio as she sat down with them, white shorts be damned. As the concrete dug into the skin of her thighs, she almost longed for the bus’s polyester seat. But this is what she deserved—she was no better than them. Flecks of rain bounced off the asphalt and onto her. She shivered, chilled to the bone. She should’ve been more prepared, but she’d never had to think about the weather before—even on vacation, her dad had always taken her to Cancun, or LA, or Ibiza. Her life had been a kaleidoscope of sunshine and salt air.
She checked her phone, still hoping in vain for a message from Alex, trying not to focus on how the entire shape of her life to come would be determined by the contents of said message.
No service.
She looked at the two other misfits, who were both staring at her, and she looked back down at her phone. She opened up a few apps to scroll through. None would load—no service.
“There’s no service,” the twink told her.
“Yeah, I got that.”
Lauryn looked back down to her phone. She pulled up a few random apps to look busy. She landed on the calculator and started typing in random numbers. 33 times 78 was 2,574. 11 plus 12 was 23. 23 divided by 93,297 was—
“The calculator app, really?” the redneck asked. Her voice was even twangier than Lauryn had anticipated. “There’s no signal, get over it.”
“What else is there to do?”
The redneck scoffed. “Are you really so addicted to that thing you can’t imagine spending a moment in the real world?”
Now it was Lauryn’s turn to scoff. “Real world? Please. Like you know anything beyond whatever backwoods dump you come from.”
“You don’t know shit, you stuck-up—”
“Stop! Dios mío, please stop arguing.” The twink’s face was red and flustered. “Why don’t we get to know each other better by sharing how we got here? I can start.”
Lauryn looked at him like he was stupid, which he probably was if he ended up on a bus like this—she certainly was. Dumb, broke, and lifeless.
“Here, I’ve got a funny story. Y’all are going to love it.”
The Twink’s Tale
So I worked at this store, a real hippie kind of place. Tie-dye and incense everywhere, and anything that can get someone any kind of high—whippets, poppers, mugwort, kratom. In the back we had wall-to-wall bongs, in every shape you could imagine—yes, that shape too. I can’t tell you how many guys tried to put it in their mouth as a joke, but would get red-faced and scamper out when I flirted back. Anyway, we also sold metaphysical stuff. Crystals, tarot cards, spellbooks, and all that.
Now, you’re probably thinking that this is gonna be a story about addicts. About the lady who came in with prison release papers, asking if we sold meth pipes. Or the guy who came in paranoid as hell, threatening to hold up the store if we didn’t stop looking at him funny. But no. This is a story about spiritual junkies. The kind who think they can buy their way to God or Goddess. The kind that think “hey, if I buy the right pendant or pack of tarot cards, I’ll finally understand the nature of the universe.” I was one of those, still am really—it’s a character flaw I’m willing to embrace. But this one lady who came in, she was on a whole different level. Started babbling about how she wanted a refund because this pendant she bought was whispering lies to her, telling her to do things she knew were wrong. And like, I figured she was just having some difficulties of the psychiatric kind, not spiritual, but what got me was when she started talking about her coven.
Because here’s what you don’t get—we’re in a little college town in southern Georgia. The idea of their being a coven in town was wild, and I’d always wanted to be a part of a coven, so I thought why not play along? It’s not like I had anything to lose. I was failing all my classes, and I couldn’t land a boyfriend to save my life. So I told her—there’s nothing wrong with the pendant. It isn’t lying to you, maybe you’re just misunderstanding. I can help you interpret it if you take me to your coven.
She was thrilled. Told me to come out to some sketchy strip of woods that night, just on the outside of town by the old cemetery. I was thrilled. And even though it sounds like something out of a horror movie, when I got there I wasn’t mugged or murdered. Wasn’t asked to be in an orgy, though I might’ve been down. Because true to her word, there was an actual coven. There were four people in it, and as soon as we got to talking, they welcomed me with open arms under the light of a full moon. One lady was a teacher. One guy worked at a chicken processing plant. Another was another college kid. And of course there was Pendant Lady, who had apparently inherited some serious money.
A couple months go by. I keep going, they keep being nice. I finally realize that I hate my accounting program and that I only enrolled to live up to my family’s expectations, so I drop out of college to figure myself out. They all charge healing crystals for me, real sweet stuff, and I’ve never felt so loved. And you’re probably wondering, you’re living the dream, what could go wrong?
Well, the answer is Pendant Lady. See, I totally forgot that the pendant was talking to her, and then one night in the woods she snaps. Starts muttering about demons, grabs the dagger we’re using for a ceremony, and tries to stab us with it. Everyone is screaming, so on instinct I call the police—but me calling the police freaks out the chicken plant guy because he’s worried he’ll get deported if they ask for ID, so he runs off. The college kid has moral objections to the police, so they scram. Teacher lady bounces because she’d never recover from the scandal if the town found out. Which leaves me to grapple with Pendant Lady.
She gets a good stab in, straight at my chest, and that’s when I remember that the dagger is ceremonial—it’s not sharpened. All it does is bounce off my chest and leave a nasty bruise. And thanks to my high school wrestling days, I’m able to keep her pinned down until the cops finally come bumbling into the woods. For a moment I’m relieved, thinking this whole ordeal is over, already trying to figure out how to fix things with the rest of the coven so that we can meet again. But then they search Pendant Lady, and it turns out she was under the influence of a different kind of crystal because they find a meth pipe on her.
At least it wasn’t the pendant I sold her that made her crazy. But now she’s screaming that they planted it on her, which normally I’d believe, but come on—she’d just tried to stab me! At this point, I’m totally frazzled and ready to go home, but then the cops take me into the station and try to bully me into admitting I was the one selling her meth. Obviously I won’t, because I didn’t—though I did sell her some weed. Eventually they let me go and I try to go back to life, but it was like the cops were stalking me everywhere I went. Like, I’d go to work and see them out the window. Like they were just waiting for me to slip up and reveal myself to be some cartel kingpin, like an El Chapo type—which, we barely even look alike. And with the coven too spooked to meet again, I figured it was time to bounce—maybe find myself somewhere where it’s a little easier to be me, somewhere where I have options about which coven I join. I always wanted to go out to the West Coast, but when I looked online the rent prices were so high that I thought maybe I was the one high on crystal. So, I called my cousin up in Minneapolis instead, booked a bus ticket, and here I am.
The redneck seemed unconvinced by the story. “I thought you said it wasn’t gonna be a story about addicts.”
“Huh?”
“In the beginning. You implied it wasn’t gonna be about actual addicts, but then it was in the end. You did this weird misdirection thing. I don’t think it worked very well.”
The twink huffed. “Well then, I’d like to see you do better.”
“I could if I wanted to, but you wouldn’t want to hear it. It’s too messed up.”
Lauryn looked at the two with a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and amusement. She caught the twink’s eye by mistake, and he held out the bag of cheese puffs. Her stomach growled. Still, she shook her head.
The twink shrugged and looked back to the redneck. He flicked his hand, as if throwing down a gauntlet. “Then let’s see it, girl. May the best storyteller win.”
“Fine.” The redneck’s face was drawn in solemn lines, and in the dim pallor of the day, her face was a ghost’s. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.”
The Redneck’s Tale
I was out hunting with my dog when—
“Wait, you have a dog?” The twink seemed unable to contain an outburst of childish joy at the mention of a dog. “Can I see pictures?”
The redneck stopped. “Seriously? Do you want me to tell the story or what?’
“Fine. Sorry. Afterward, maybe.”
The Redneck’s Tale
I was out hunting with my dog when my ex-wife called and—
“Wait, you have an ex-wife?” Lauryn asked, unable to help herself.
The redneck stopped. “What, you wanna see pictures too? Why is that so hard to believe? Am I that ugly?”
“No, I just—I didn’t expect you to be gay.”
“Oh. Well, I wasn’t when we got married.”
Even the twink was confused now. “Huh?
“We met before I transitioned. I was still living as a man back then.”
“Oh.” Lauryn wasn’t sure what else to say. The twink didn’t know either, apparently. Lauryn watched as the redneck’s face grew redder and redder.
“I keep assuming people can tell. Maybe I shouldn’t these days.” She cleared her throat and, with slight hesitation, continued.
The Redneck’s Tale
I was out hunting with my dog when my ex-wife called. Said she was at the house and I needed to come. I drove back and there she was, standing in the doorway with her father’s pistol—the only thing he left her, cheap bastard. She said I was the reason no one in town would talk to her anymore. Said that I ruined her life and it was time I was gone from it. She raised the gun and clicked off the safety. But then she turned it away from me and to her own skull. It trembled, I remember that—gunmetal quivering against skin blistered from the sun. Before she got a shot off though, my dog—well, he must have known something was wrong. At the end of the day, she was still his other momma. Still the one who rescued him when he was the runt of his litter.
So he lunged and latched onto her leg to stop her. She panicked though and shot him. I’ve heard a lot of gunshots in my life but that one was the loudest. Like the world coming undone. He started bleeding out all of her, parts of him spilling across her bare feet. She started screaming and sobbing. He was howling, but couldn’t move. She dropped the gun, I remember that—it clattered down the front porch steps and landed just shy of my feet.
Then something, I don’t know what, came over me—maybe it was the Holy Spirit. I bent down and picked up the gun. It was covered with flecks of blood, I remember that—dirt and concrete grit was stuck to it. Then I walked over and carefully, gently, put him down. I don’t think it even made a sound, that second gunshot.
She wrapped her arms around me. I wrapped my arms around her. I could feel the sheen of sweat on her skin and she was shaking so hard I thought her heart was gonna give out. I know mine was already gone, because he was my heart. My only friend left in the world.
I couldn’t stay, not after that.
I just hope she’s alright there without me, that maybe her life is better for it. Now I’ve got nothing to my name but a ticket for Peoria. Don’t know what’s there, but I hear it’s better up north for people like me, so maybe it’s for the best. I’ll miss home. I’ll miss the woods and the creek and the birds. I’ll miss the South. But maybe there’s more to life I haven’t discovered yet.
“Never mind,” the twink said, his face ashen. “I don’t want to think I want to see photos of the dog anymore.”
A surge of irritation welled up in Lauryn. Where it came from, she couldn’t tell—maybe it was hunger, disdain, or self-contempt—but she couldn’t stop herself from scoffing. “Guns, ex-wives, and dead dogs—it just feels like something out of a messed-up country song.”
The redneck seemed offended. “I’m sorry my life ain’t glamorous enough for you.”.
The twink scoffed in apparent agreement, but not with Lauryn. “Of course you wouldn’t get it. I’m sure the snob here totally understands the meaning of pain.”
“The snob?”
“You heard me. I’m sure you lived such a tough life with your Prada purse and superior attitude.”
It was a joke—A twink, redneck, and snob get stuck under an overhang while waiting for their bus to be fixed. They tell their sad tale of alienation and despair to see who had the worst of it, and the snob says—
“You don’t get it, I ruined my own life. I have nothing left—nothing.”
The Snob’s Tale
I didn’t grow up rich. We didn’t have a private jet or a mansion—not like my friend Jessica. We drove Audis, not Ferraris. We were upper-middle class, or maybe even middle class because my dad worked for every penny. He grew up poor in a backwater Panhandle town, so even though we had money, we weren’t really rich because he still had that mentality, and—
“Don’t even try that,” the twink said.
“It’s kind of disrespectful, honestly,” the redneck added. “We don’t choose how we’re born. Your family had money, whatever. Just own up to it. Be honest.”
Lauryn swallowed and, once more, began.
Lauryn’s Tale
My dad, he cares about a lot of things, but two things in particular—his children, and money. I think it does something to you, when you go from nothing to everything. But I wouldn’t know, because he was already wealthy by the time he had me and my two little brothers. Growing up, he loved us differently. Even though my brothers are younger, he always looked at them as future businessmen. He would talk to them about work and pit them against each other in some twisted game of hereditary succession, which is ridiculous because he’s the owner of a local auto parts chain, not some international corporation. But he just wanted me to be like my mother. Young. Beautiful. Fun. Unconcerned with complicated things. Though maybe if she had been, she would’ve noticed the signs of cancer earlier, and—
…
Sorry. I still can’t talk about that.
Anyway, I didn’t try very hard in school. And when I did, he’d brush it off and ask instead if there were any boys I thought were cute, or if me and the girls had any fun plans for the weekend. So, that’s who I was. That’s who I still am. I love beauty, shopping, and weekends spent at the beach or spa. I know how to make friends and get the attention of men, when I want to.
But I didn’t want to love Alex.
I hated her at first. In high school, my friends and I, we—well, I wouldn’t say we bullied her. I wouldn’t…it wasn’t like that. I mostly just ignored her, but some of the girls said some cruel things because she wasn’t like us. She’d come to school barefaced and dressed in ratty men’s clothing, she didn’t have any friends, and she never went to any school socials, not even prom. She was also a scholarship student. But mostly, I think we hated her because she didn’t even try to fit in, and sometimes it felt like that’s all we ever tried to do—morph ourselves into the image of what we expected each other to be. Seeing someone who didn’t even try was a special kind of insult.
But during junior year, we got stuck working on a history project together. I figured she’d think I was a vapid rich girl like everyone else seemed to, but it turned out I was half-decent at history—growing up with my dad, you had to puzzle over his life before to understand his eccentricities. So once we started on the project, she realized that I wasn’t a complete idiot and her eyes would light up whenever I said something insightful. And I realized that she was actually kind of cool, because she’d make these hilariously dark jokes and I’d laugh my butt off. By the end of it we didn’t hate each other anymore. Instead, during our senior year we had this mutual respect thing going on where we didn’t talk, but I’d smile at her in the hall and she’d give me a grumpy, curt nod.
I didn’t expect to see her again after graduation, but we both went to college in Miami and ended up in the same orientation group. Since we didn’t know anyone else in the group, we stuck to each other like seagrass and somehow became friends afterward. Most days we would grab lunch together and laze around in the sun. She got me into her grungy music, and I got her into rom-coms. On restless nights, we’d wander the beach. The sea looks different under moonlight, like a different world. A better one. And Alex, she loved astronomy—she’d point out all the different constellations in the sky, and tell me the stories behind them. My favorite was Andromeda. I thought the story of her love was beautiful.
I still had my girlfriends, and I still partied and gossiped and spent weekends out with them, but it was different—every month that slipped away, it felt more and more like I was auditioning for a role I didn’t even want. By the end of my sophomore year, I was spending most of my time with Alex because when the two of us were together, it was like the world finally made sense. We’d talk for hours, or sometimes just sit in silence together, and I’d see all the beautiful little things I’d never noticed before, like background birdsong or the way palm trees bend in the wind. And Alex, the only time she’d let loose and smile was around me, and God her smile was beautiful. For the first time in my life it felt like I knew someone and someone knew me.
Then there was this night on the beach, when the sea was so violent that we were left alone on the shore. Under the stars she looked so beautiful, like a whole universe—my universe. On instinct I kissed her, and for a moment I thought I’d made the worst mistake of my life. But then she kissed me back, and I realized that somehow I’d fallen for her a hundred little times since we first met.
After that, we started holding hands. It was such a small thing, but it made me feel so happy—so loved—that I’d insist we do it now matter how hot and sweaty we were under the Florida sun. Then we started going on dates that we didn’t call dates. First to the art museum, then to the Everglades, and then to literally everywhere else. It wasn’t long until she moved into my apartment, and all day in class I would daydream about her dark hair and brooding eyes and the way she made math sound like poetry. We spent a year like that, and it was the best year of my life.
Alex had a lot of college credit from high school though, so she graduated at the end of our junior year and was set to leave for a PhD program for physics in Chicago. It was a beautiful city, she raved—all art deco and skyscrapers and the kind of place she could use the bathroom without worrying about her safety as a butch woman. The week before she left, she told me that she was hopelessly in love and wanted to try long distance until I graduated and could join her. She said that she was serious, so serious she did something I didn’t expect—she pulled out a ring. I was in shock. We’d only been dating for a year, and I wasn’t even sure…well, at that point I should’ve known that I was a lesbian and hopelessly in love. But I’d always lived in Florida, and Chicago sounded terrifying. It would be gray and cold, I wouldn’t know anyone there, and Dad had always made his disdain for gay people clear. I knew I’d be giving up any financial support from him, and Alex’s stipend was basically nothing.
By going with her, I’d lose everything—sunshine, financial security, and the love of the only parent I had left. I started crying. I didn’t say no. But I couldn’t say yes.
She left and we didn’t speak again.
I didn’t leave my apartment for a month. I failed most of my classes. I tried to slip back into my old life, but the sun was blistering now. The humidity suffocating. All my clothes showed too much skin in the wrong places. And my girlfriends became insufferable. One day, we were getting pedicures and they were whining about how unfair the world was, how their professors were so cruel for giving them a C, and I snapped. Started crying and shouting that I had lost everything—that was when I realized it. That somehow, Alex had become my everything. And it was too late. Things got messy in the salon. And social circles like mine, they’re small. Even if Miami felt a world away from Orlando, it wasn’t. One of my girlfriends must have told someone, who told someone, who told my dad about Alex.
He was not pleased.
My brothers warned not to come back home because they weren’t sure what Dad would do, but I ignored them because he could be an ass, but he’d never been violent.
I learned that trip that there are things worse than violence.
We haven’t talked since.
I still had a year of college left, plus a semester to make up for the one I flunked, so I took out loans, maxed out my credit cards, and graduated with a degree in history pockmarked with C’s and D’s. After graduation I had no career prospects, but I still had enough half-friends that they’d let me crash on their couch for a while if I dolled myself up for their parties and drank to the point of blackout. For three months, I’d wake up in the morning and wander out to the beach hungover and puke my guts out into the ocean, wondering how I was even alive anymore. Wondering if maybe I wasn’t, and that this was my own personal hell. It got to the point where my skin was a patchwork of rotten-gray and sunburns, and my eyes—I didn’t recognize the look in them. They weren’t hazel anymore, just brown. Like the green was just…gone. Like my soul was missing. Yet men wouldn’t leave me alone—like the more rotten I got, the more they wanted me.
One day, I skipped drinking and got the shakes real bad. In that haze of withdrawal I realized that if I didn’t leave, all of me that was really me would die. That the things that had stopped me from being with Alex were the things that poisoned me. That I needed to face my fears. That I needed to give up the sunshine and childhood fantasies about life, and that I needed to get away and move somewhere I could be me and build a real life for myself. So, I applied for a hundred jobs in Chicago and lucked into one as a receptionist downtown. I used the last bit of money I had for a bus ticket and texted Alex that I missed her and wanted to talk. That I was moving to Chicago, but that I understood if she didn’t want to see me. That she wouldn’t have to if she didn’t want to. It’s a big city, after all—another world.
I don’t know if she still loves me. It was my fault we broke up, so I’m not expecting anything. I’m just clinging to the hope I might be able to try again.
The twink—no, the man bound for Minneapolis—had red eyes again. “I’m not crying, I promise. It’s just very Romeo and Juliet. If I was Alex and you told me all that, I’d take you back in a heartbeat.”
Lauryn realized that she, too, had cried a little. “I don’t know if I deserve it. I’m trying to be better, but I feel so much shame about myself and I’m torn apart between all these impulses of what I want and what I need.”
The redneck—no, the woman bound for Peoria—nodded slowly. “Shame will eat you up entirely, if you keep feeding it—like a rat gnawing on its own leg. Sometimes you have let go.” A pause. “You’re not the stuck-up bitch I thought you were. I hope you have better luck in love than I did.”
A strange, overwhelming surge of love bloomed in Lauryn’s heart. “I hope you find a better life in Peoria, too. You could even come visit me in Chicago sometime.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Thanks I guess, but no thanks.”
The man laughed. “You two are wild. My life is crazy, but I’ll take it.”
Lauryn’s stomach growled audibly in response. The man looked down to his bag of cheese puffs, and then back to Lauryn. “Want some?”
Hesitantly, Lauryn nodded and dipped a careful hand down, trying to make as little contact with the bag’s inside as possible. She came out with a cheese puff and placed it between her teeth. It made a sharp crunch; the flavor was electric. She went back in for a handful and ate the rest quickly, savoring each bite.
The man laughed. “You can finish it if you like.”
She did gladly. Once she was done she licked the dust off her fingers and dried them on denim, white shorts be damned.
And then, a cry of joy from the other side of the overhang—the bus was fixed. The rain had stopped too, and a faint prism of rainbow colors stretched across the sky. The passengers hurried over to board the bus, single file. The three misfits were the last to board, with Lauryn at the very end. She paused, looking into the rectangular portal—it was odd, the way the world was broken into inside and outside. Into somewhere and nowhere. She crossed the threshold and pulled herself up, joining the other wandering souls aboard, each mired in some place between the past and future. She smiled at the bus driver and he returned it, eyes twinkling above his bushy mustache. She glanced down to his nametag.
“Charon?”
“Call me Charlie,” he grinned.
Lauryn shrugged and glanced down the aisle. The man and woman had settled into the back, still chatting. Apparently, they hadn’t been misfits at all; they’d already known each other from the ride over. In the third row, her seat next to the old lady was still open. She stepped forward, but then stopped. She glanced at the man with the blonde hair and ballcap in the second row. He was on his phone with earbuds plugged in, even if there was still no service. She could sit there, and knew that if she did he probably wouldn’t even look at her—she could disappear into the seat like a ghost, seen by nobody and blind to the world around her.
Lauryn took a deep breath and slipped into the seat next to the old lady.
“Tell me about your grandchildren.”
The old lady looked at her with an upturned eyebrow. “No thanks.”
Perhaps she should have expected that.
The bus roared to life. It whined as it pulled out of the parking lot, and Lauryn could feel it trembling beneath their weight as it churned over the road. She glanced out the window. The trees weren’t dead, she realized. They were just beginning to bud with fragile tips of green. In the window, she saw her reflection too—smudged, imperfect, but her. In her own eyes, she once again saw glimpses of green in the hazel.
She looked down at her phone. A notification—a text from Alex. Her heart rattled with the groaning of the bus. This text contained her future; it was a prophecy, and the realization came down on her. If Lauryn read the text and it said that Alex wanted to talk, it would be wonderful but it wouldn’t change anything—she’d still ride the bus just the same to Chicago. But if the text was a rejection from Alex, Lauryn had a sinking suspicion that her strength might fail and that she might give up and go back to Florida in shame—a choice that would actually doom her.
Whatever was to happen in Chicago would happen whether she read the text or not. And even if Alex said no, maybe she’d change her mind in time—Lauryn had. Getting to Chicago and coming back to life was the important part; unlike Orpheus she had faith in both herself and their love and she wasn’t going to look down.
Lauryn put her phone away, text unread. From the gentle chorus of voices on the bus, the old lady spoke. “My daughter is a lot like you. I love my grandkids to death, but I used to think I didn’t love her. And yet, I do. We can’t help it, I think.”
Lauryn didn’t ask her what it was. The old lady didn’t elaborate.
“Let me tell you a story from when I was your age. I was crazy in love with this boy, but in Natchez, we have a saying—God doesn’t give with both hands. And I, well, I never was a beauty. Instead, I…”
Lauryn relaxed into the bus seat and listened as the old lady came alive.
Samantha Sapp is a writer and former middle school teacher. Though she is originally from the Florida Panhandle, she now lives in the icy Midwest. Her prose has appeared in journals like Screen Door Review, Mount Hope Magazine, and Sinister Wisdom. You can find her on Bluesky or lost in the woods.