Mind Drabbles

1 - Bus stop

It's raining at the bus stop. Not a soft drizzle either, but a cold, steady kind of rain that needles through clothes and makes everything smell like wet concrete and rust. I huddle under the awning, arms tucked tightly into my sides, and watch the grey sky melt into the street.

I don't like it when it rains.

Not anymore.

Rain used to mean coming home to warm lights and hot chocolate and towels thrown over my head by someone who cared. Now it just means time slows down. Now it just reminds me I'm walking somewhere that isn't home.

Because I don't have a home anymore. Not really.

So I stop at the bus shelter. Not because I'm waiting for a bus—God, no. I just want a place to hide. From the rain. From myself.

I sink onto the bench and pretend I'm not pretending. The cold from the metal seeps through the fabric of my jeans, and I welcome it. Nobody else is here, and that's good. If I'm alone, I can open my book. I can lose myself in words, pretend they matter more than memories. I can disappear.

I flip to the last page I was on. I don't read it.

The peace doesn't last.

He appears out of nowhere—like he was summoned by some cosmic joke I didn't hear the punchline of. Tall, soaked, storming under the bus shelter like it belongs to him. He's yelling into a phone, sharp and fast and angry. The words roll over me like thunder.

I think it's Spanish. I used to know, I think. Or at least recognize it. But it's been so long since I've heard anything that wasn't English. Even English sounds foreign now. Even my own voice feels like a stranger's.

He looks like someone carved out of sunlight and storm clouds. Tall, lean, his dark skin gleaming wet from the rain. His hair curls wildly across his forehead, droplets clinging to the strands like ornaments. His voice cuts through the air like a blade, sharp and furious.

"Mami," he says, again and again. I don't know what she did, but it must've hurt. His voice is raw with something bigger than anger.

And I wonder—would I ever have the courage to speak like that to my mother? To speak at all? Not that she'd pick up if I called. Not that I'd try.

He ends the call with a sigh that's more exhausted than mad and slumps onto the bench beside me. Close enough that I can smell him—rain and something clean, like citrus soap.

"Sorry about the yelling," he says, glancing sideways with a sheepish smile.

His smile is everything I'm not. Warm. Open. Human. A dimple flashes on his left cheek and it's not fair—how someone can be beautiful like that in this bleak, wet world.

An angel, I think. Fallen maybe. But still glowing.

I wonder if he looks at me and sees a monster.

I wonder if he looks at me and sees something that should be hunted, something his mother warned him about.

My parents used to say that. That I was something dangerous. Something unfixable. Something wrong.

They were many things, but they weren't liars.

He tries to talk to me. Asks me questions. Where I'm headed. What I'm reading. If I like the rain. Harmless things. Soft things. He's being kind and I hate it. Not him, but what kindness feels like. Like a lie I can't afford to believe.

I don't answer. My voice won't work. It's buried somewhere beneath everything I've been trying not to feel. My silence makes his smile falter.

I didn't mean to make him sad.

I'm not good at this.

A bus pulls up, wheezing and sighing like it's as tired of existing as I am. The doors fold open and the boy—my boy, I think wildly, stupidly—stands.

He glances back at me before he steps on.

For a moment—just one—I think about running after him. About climbing those steps and sitting beside him and letting my story change.

I think about what it might feel like to choose something different than sadness.

But I don't move.

Because the rain has stopped.

And angels never choose monsters anyway.