drift // complete

iii

iii

"Excuse me, can you plug this in?"

She snapped out of her reverie. Cautiously, her eyes inched to peek beside her.

She'd never seen this person before. He must've just started sitting here recently. Silently, she took the cord he held in his hand and plugged it into the wall.

She turned away, busying herself with a person she didn't really care about.

Gradually, the banter of the other students around her muffled, as if she had thrown a thick blanket over them and walked a few yards away.

She allowed her vision to unfocus. She felt detached, empty. Her cheeks felt wet.

Nobody noticed that she'd been crying. Neither did she.

Crunch, crunch, crack.

//

She had to ride the bus now. She and her family had moved a couple days ago. March twenty-fifth.

On March twenty-seventh, she rode the bus for the first time. It was cramped, stuffy. Too loud. So loud that she couldn't muffle their words or voices or anything.

Her hands shook violently. She gripped her sides as she walked down the aisle. Marrying her fate. She ventured into the back, taking a seat where no one else was.

She saw him again. He sat a seat ahead of her, across the aisle. Idly, he polished a knife. Her eyes were desperate for familiarity, so she drank in the sight of him.

He looked up at her.

Today, his eyes were pale green and amber. For a second, she marveled at the sight of him.

Then she looked out the window.

She heard him speak for the first time that day.

She heard a voice that she never wanted to miss out on again for the first time that day. For the first time in her life.