Still Here

2

The school bus waits for me patiently, but I never come. Obviously. I'm not spending a second of my last day on earth sitting on that godforsaken bus.

Mom needs the car today, so I can't drive. But I prefer walking - I tend to notice much more of the world when I do. The first thing I notice, though, is nothing on my path: it's that Michael isn't on the bus. I guess he hasn't been on it in a long time, but this is the first time that I've fully realized it. He must have grown up and got his license when I wasn't looking.

We used to ride together, back in freshman year. Always sitting to the right of the bus. A wave of nostalgia crashes over me as a smile tugs at my chapped lips.

The memories I have with him are warm, clear ones, that are so plentiful in my mind, they seem rather infinite. We would talk constantly and of wondrous things that didn't truly matter, but seemed to. We spoke of books and movies and the people at school and practically anything we could form words about. He was my safe haven: a lovely place where only the good of the world existed.

But the good things begin to seem a lot less good when you never speak of the bad. Inevitably, our conversations grew dull and unreal. Whenever he pushed toward anything slightly dark, I would move away. Told him I couldn't handle it - which was true. I couldn't handle any more darkness.

I still can't.

So we drifted away from each other, before drowning in our own different oceans. What was once a shallow friendship soon became nothing at all. We smiled at each other in hallways and chatted randomly, but there was never more than that. And in order to truly know someone, there has to be more. You can't connect with a lack of material.

So we remained disconnected. Existing from afar. I guess I'll die wondering if there was ever supposed to be something more to us.

There is a part of me that wants to know. A part that sort of wants to stay - to see what might happen.

But that part of me is dying.

I tell myself that it will just have to wait a day, until every part of me is no longer dying, but finally dead.